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LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
 
THE EARL OF DUFFERIN. 
 
A YACHT VOYAGE. 
 
 Letters from High Latititdes 
 
 BEING SOME ACCOUNT OF A VOYAGE, IN 1856, 
 IN THE SCHOONER YACHT ''FOAM:' 
 
 ICELAND, JAN MAYEN, AND SPITZBERGEN. 
 
 BY LORD DUFFERIN (^vai\^c^.. 
 
 GOVERNOR GENERAL OF THE DOMINION OF CANADA. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 R. WORTHINGTON, 750 BROADWAY. 
 
 1873. 
 

 Bat since it pleased a vanished eye; 
 I go to plant it on his tomb, 
 That if it can, it there may bloom, 
 
 Or dying — there at least may die-" 
 
 "He, 
 To whom a thousand memories callj 
 Not being less, but more than all 
 The gentleness he seemed to be, 
 
 So wore his outward best, and joined 
 Each office of the social hour 
 To noble manners, as the flower 
 And native growth of noble mind." 
 
 in JMemoriam. 
 
TO 
 
 "THAT TRUE NORTH," 
 
 I DEDICATE 
 THIS EDITION. 
 
" Witness, too, the silent cry, 
 The prayer of many a race, and creed, and clime, 
 Thunderless lightnings striking under sea 
 From sunset to sunrise of all thy realm, 
 And tliat true North." 
 
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. 
 
 'T^HAT an Universal Language would infinitely multiply 
 the moral and material forces of mankind, is an idea as 
 old as the story of Babel ; for it is evident that with such 
 a medium, those waves of thought and conviction, upon 
 whose rapid and ubiquitous propagation depend the pro- 
 gress of our species, would permeate the world with the 
 instantaneous energy of an electric shock, communicating 
 irresistible intensity to all human effort. But is not the 
 punishment pronounced on man's primeval presumption, 
 in the course of reversal ? Whatever may be the future 
 fate of the kingdoms, states, and empires founded by 
 the British race, the edict has already gone forth which 
 constitutes our Mother tongue the common language 
 of the chief portion of the earth. From the Arctic Circle 
 to the Gulf of Mexico, along the Western, Southern, and 
 Eastern seaboards of Africa, throughout the peninsula 
 of India, in the ports of China and Japan, amongst the 
 islands of the Pacific Archipelago, and on the Australian 
 continent, the English language already reigns supreme. 
 In another fifty years, the English-speaking population of 
 North America alone will number more than one hundred 
 million souls, whose merchant fleets will whiten the two 
 
vi PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. 
 
 adjacent oceans, while those of their Australian brethren 
 crowd all the Southern seas. What may not be expected 
 from the exertions of such a civilization, itself the heir of 
 all the ages, — thus unified by the possession of a common 
 language, a common literature, analogous political institu- 
 tions, the ties of kinsmanship, and a traditional affection! 
 
 But it is to the writer of English books that such a pros- 
 pect is most exhilarting. An author's public is as the breath 
 of his nostrils ; his fame is fed by numbers, and the incre- 
 ment of mankind, ensures his immortality. As he glances 
 down the vista of futurity he feels like the actor watching 
 through a hole in a curtain the grateful overflow of a ben- 
 efit audience along the boxes, pit, and stalls, into the waste 
 places and ultimate recesses of his theatre. It is true the 
 fulness of this joy belongs only to the leading performers; 
 but even the walking gentleman — and to no higher analogy 
 does the present writer pretend — feels a humble pride in 
 the triumphs thus preparing for his more illustrious col- 
 leagues, nay, may find consolation in the thought that his 
 own part, however insignificant, is not to be played before 
 empty benches. Though he receive or deserve but scant 
 attention from the audience as a whole, the scattered 
 crumbs of approbation which may fall from amid an infini- 
 tude of spectators, will furnish forth, he trusts, what in 
 the sum may prove sufficient material for a very respect- 
 able reputation. 
 
 It is in some such kindred hope that the author now 
 watches his little book being introduced at the instance of 
 its present publishers to the notice of the inhabitants of 
 
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. vii 
 
 the United States. It has already received in England the 
 modest share of patronage to which it was entitled. In 
 Canada other causes have secured for it more attention 
 than it could have claimed on its own merits. If it should 
 be fortunate enough to attract the favor or amuse the 
 lighter hours of his Republican neighbors, his ambition will 
 be more than satisfied j for not only will he feel that his 
 work has been permanently dom.iciled amid the expanding 
 hterature of the American continent, but that he has also 
 contributed, however infinitesimally, to the pleasure of 
 those from so many of whose countrymen he has received 
 both in his public and private capacity unusual marks of 
 courtesy and kindness. 
 
PREFACE ESPECIALLY WRITTEN FOR THE 
 CANADIAN EDITION. 
 
 A CYNIC has suggested that after a certain interval the 
 return to life of our dearest relative might often occasion 
 as much perplexity as pleasure. 
 
 However harshly this sentiment may grate on the ears of 
 Constancy, I confess to a kindred feeling of embarrassment in 
 being suddenly confronted, after so many years, with the alien 
 self that reappears in the following pages ; but I am told that the 
 friendly community with which I am now connected, and with 
 whose fortunes my own are temporarily interwoven, may be 
 disposed to take an interest in the youthful yachting experiences 
 of their present Governor General. 
 
 But for this I should never have had the hardihood to appear as 
 an author before the public of this Continent, whose geograph- 
 ical position and fiscal arrangements enable its inhabitants to 
 skim the cream from the literature of Europe, without troubling 
 themselves either with its sedimentary deposits, or the irritating 
 restrictions of its copyrights. Once indeed through the " enter- 
 prise " of a transatlantic Editor, whose nationality shall be name- 
 less, a mutilated issue of these " Letters " obtained an ephemeral 
 publicity in a provincial serial, but in spite of my spirited impresario 
 having prefaced his piracy by the assertion that " he had 
 commissioned a British Lord at a handsome salary" to discover 
 the North Pole " and to furnish his Magazine with "an account 
 of his adventures," confirmed as it was by such a transfiguration 
 of the dates, tenses, and superscriptions in my narrative as 
 might best color this ingenious fiction — the speculation must 
 have proved a financial failure, as no per centage on his profits 
 has hitherto reached my hands. 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 Notwithstanding this discouraging experience, I am still in 
 hopes that the Canadian reader, apart from any personal interest 
 with which he may regard the author, will not grudge an 
 occasional half-hour to a description of those out-land countries 
 that share with his Dominion the Aurora's ruby affluence; and 
 are wrapped by winter in the same silver mantle as his own; 
 whose early mariners — 500 years before Columbus — swept 
 through the gulfs of his St. Lawrence, and struck the headlands 
 of his Acadie ; and whose modern inhabitants, in the simplicity 
 of their lives, in the nobleness of their courtesy, in the freedom 
 of their pohtical institutions, and in their masculine energy 
 exemphfy and prefigure within their lesser limits the qualities, 
 virtues, and attainments proper to a great Northern people. 
 
 And here I should be disposed to end my brief apology for 
 this Edition, were it not that I am tempted to seize the oppor- 
 tunity of answering a question that has been frequently put to 
 me — " What has become of Wilson ? " 
 
 This kind and faithful servant remained with me for many 
 years after my return from the North, environed by something 
 of an heroic halo in the eyes of the ladies of his acquaintance, 
 and of the public whom he frequented. He subsequently 
 accompanied me on an eighteen months' cruise to the Mediter- 
 ranean, as well as on my visit to Syria as British Commissioner, 
 but neither the sunshine of the South nor the glitter of the parti- 
 colored East, mercurialized the melancholy of his tem.perament. 
 In the congenial atmosphere of the graveyards of Egypt he 
 displayed indeed a transient sprightHness, which the occasional 
 exhumation of a mummy, and such traffic with the dead and 
 their appurtenances as my excavations at Thebes afforded him, 
 stimulated into spasms of hilarity. 
 
 Of the Pyramids he was disposed to think but lightly, until 
 informed that they had served for sepulchres ; but on quitting 
 the heights of Gizeh I observed that he had selected two skulls 
 as the appropriate memorials of his visit. With his brows 
 bound in the folds of a yellow turban, a striped Arab mantle 
 enveloping his person, and seated on a donkey, these fleshless 
 countenances grinning from under either arm, — his own, the 
 least jovial of the three, — he presented, I confess, something of 
 a weird and ghoul-hke appearance as, wending round the ran- 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 sacked tombs of the Pharaohs, we passed to our boats through 
 the purple haze of evening. 
 
 He continued to the end to solemnize his announcements 
 with phrases of dolorous import. One day at Thebes I was 
 lying in my berth prostrate with a feverish attack, my nerves in 
 that impressionable state peculiar to sickness in a tropical 
 climate ; suddenly Wilson enters the cabin and proclaims in his 
 hollow tones, "If you please, my Lord, the Corpse is come 
 aboard ! " by which dignified but depressing title he was pleased 
 to designate a mummy which my people had just brought down 
 from a rock-temple I had recently discovered. 
 
 His bedside visits, however, were not always so innocuous. 
 On our arrival at Beirut some months afterwards, we found a 
 traveller at the hotel stricken with Syrian fever — a disease 
 which seldom pardons. The patient's life hung by a thread. 
 The doctors had enjoined the most absolute quiet, and every 
 inmate of the house passed his door breathless and on tiptoe. 
 One kind lady, who had constituted herself his nurse, was 
 allowed to visit him. But on an unlucky Sunday afternoon she 
 was absent for a brief half hour at Church. 
 
 Forthwith Wilson stole upon his victim, and gliding into a chair 
 at the bed-head, whispered forth at intervals these sentences of 
 dole : " Well, sir ! you do look bad ! " " S3Tian fever, I under- 
 stand, sir .? " " Ah ! they say people don't recover from Syrian 
 fever." " I am Wilson, sir." " The Wilson ! " with which 
 ghostlike revelation of his identity he concluded his dismal 
 Avatar, the particulars of which the sick man happily survived 
 to relate. 
 
 I could multiply these paragraphs by the relation of a hundred 
 similar traits of miy poor follower's saturnine humor. It would be 
 more difficult to give an adequate idea of his kindness and 
 affectionate serviceableness, his resolution in danger, his versa- 
 tility of resource, and unassailable integrity ; only those who 
 have travelled much in wild countries can understand what an 
 infinite enhancement of one's pleasure, comfort and security, is 
 born of such faithful comradeship. If every now and then I 
 have endeavored to enliven my story with glimpses of the share 
 my poor servant took in our daily life, the reader will feel that 
 a loving hand has guided the pencil. To this day I never 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 prepare for a journey without a sigh of regret for my lost 
 travelling companion. 
 
 Some time after our return to England, Wilson's health 
 became affected by an obscure disease, which subsequently 
 developed very distressing symptoms, and after much suffering, 
 borne with great patience, he died in the Hospital for incurables 
 at Wimbledon. 
 
 Ottawa, Ont., 1S73. 
 
DRAMATIS PERSONS. 
 
 SiGURDR, Son ^JoNAS, Icelander ; Law Student. 
 
 Charles E. Fitzgerald, Surgeon; Photographer ; Birtanist. 
 
 Lord Dufferin, Navigator ; Sagaman ; Artist. 
 
 William Wilson, Valet; Gardener; Cape Colonist. 
 
 Albert Grant, Steward ; Watchmaker ; Bird-stiiffer. 
 
 John Bevis, First Cook; afterzvards Ducrow. 
 
 William Webster, Second Cook; Carpenter ; late of Her Majesty's Fa-. 
 
 Giiards ; afterwards Maid Marian. 
 Ebenezer Wyse, Master ; Californian Gold-digger. 
 William Leverett, Mate. 
 William Taylor, Butcher. 
 Charles Parne, \ 
 Thomas Scarlett, 
 Thomas Pilcher, \ Seamen. 
 Henry Leverett, 
 John Lock, 
 William Wynhall, Ship-boy. 
 Voice of a Frejich Captain. 
 A German Gnat-catcher. 
 An early Village Cock. 
 A Goat. 
 
 An Icelandic Fox. 
 A White Bear. 
 
 Ladies and Cavaliers of the Icelandic, Norse, Lappish, a/z^/ French 
 tongues., 
 
 SCENE. — Sometimes on board the "Foam," sometimes in Iceland, Spitz- 
 BERGEN, and Norway. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 FAQS 
 
 Portrait Frontispiece 
 
 Wilson 48 
 
 Snorro. 51 
 
 The Lake OF Thingvalla 55 
 
 Plain of Thingvalla 57 
 
 Ground Plan of Thingvalla 59 
 
 The Althing 63 
 
 Thingvaela , 65 
 
 The Great Geys:ir 7S 
 
 Sketch of Waterworks 86 
 
 An Icelandic Lady 105 
 
 Remains of Basaltic Dykes no 
 
 Taking a Sight 147 
 
 Mountains of Norway 149, 150 
 
 First Glimpse of Jan Maven 151 
 
 The Icelandic Fox i63 
 
 A Lapp Lady 1 66 
 
 A Lapp Lady's Bonnet 167 
 
 In the Ice 1S9 
 
 Sigurdr r94 
 
 The Midnight Sun off Spitzbergen 199 
 
 " The Girls at Home hwe got hold of the Tow-Rope" 225 
 
 xiv 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 Protesilaus Stumbles on the Threshold i 
 
 LETTER II. 
 The Icelander — A modern Sir Patrick Spens 2 
 
 LETTER III. 
 Loch Goil — The Saga of Clan Campbell 4 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Through the Sounds— Stornaway— The Setting up Of The Figure-Head 
 — Fitz's Foray — " Oh weel may the boatie row, that wins the Bairns' 
 bread " — Sir Patrick Spens joins — Up Anchor '. g 
 
 LETTER V. 
 The North Atlantic — Spanish Waves — Our Cabin in a Gale — Sea-Sick- 
 ness from a Scientific Point of View — Wilson — A Passenger Com- 
 mits Suicide — First Sight of Iceland — Floki of the Ravens — The 
 Norse Mayflower — Faxa Fiord — We Land in Thule 14 
 
 LETTER VL 
 
 Reykjavik — Latin Conversation — I become the Proprietor of Twenty-six 
 Horses — Eider Ducks — Bessestad — Snorro Sturleson — The Old 
 Greenland Colony — Finland — A Genoese Skipper in the Fifteenth 
 Century — An Icelandic Dinner — Skoal — An After-Dinner Speech in 
 Latin — Winged Rabbits — Ducrow — Start of the Baggage-Train 23 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 Kisses — Wilson on Horseback — A Lava Plateau — Thingvalla — Almanna- 
 gia — Rabnagia — Our Tent — The Shivered Plain — Witch-Drowning — 
 A ParHamentary Debate, A. D. 1000 — Thangbrand the Missionary — 
 A German Gnat-Catcher — The Mystical Mountains — Sir Olaf — Heck- 
 la — Skapta Jokul — The Fire Deluge of 1783 — We reach the Geysir 
 — Strokr — Fitz's Bonne Fortune — More Kisses — An Eruption — 
 
xvi CONTENTS, 
 
 Prince Napoleon — Return — Trade — Population — A Mutiny — The 
 " Reine Hortense " — The Seven Dutchmen — A Ball — Low Dresses 
 — Northward Ho ! 49 
 
 LETTER VIIL 
 Start from Reykjavik — Snaefell — The Lady of Froda — A Berserk Trage- 
 dy — The Champion of Breidavik — Gnunder Fiord— The Last Night — 
 Crossing the Arctic Circle — Fete on board the " Reine Hortense " 
 — Le Pere Arctique — We Fall in with the Ice — The " Saxon " 
 Disappears — Mist — A Parting in a Lonely Spot — Jan Mayen — 
 Mount Beerenberg — An Unpleasant position — Shift of Wind and 
 Extrication — "To Norroway over the Faem" — A Nasty Coast — 
 Hammerfest log 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 Extract from the " Moniteur " of the 31st July , 153 
 
 LETTER X. 
 Bucolics — The Goat — Maid Marian — A Lapp Lady — Lapp Love-Making 
 —The Sea-Horseman — The Gulf Stream — Arctic Currents — A Dingy 
 Expedition — A School of Peripatetic Fishes — Alten — The Chate- 
 laine of Kaafiord — Still Northward Ho ! 162 
 
 LETTER XL 
 We Sail for Bear Island, and Spitzenbergen — Cherie Island — Barentz — 
 Sir Hugh Willoughby — Parry's Attempt to reach the North Pole — 
 Again amongst the Ice — Ice-Blink — First Sight of Spitzbergen — 
 Wilson — Decay of our Hopes — Constant Struggle with the Ice — 
 We Reach the 80° N. lat. — A Freer Sea — We Land in Spitzber- 
 gen— Enghsh Bay — Lady Edith's Glacier — A Midnight Photograph 
 — No Reindeer to be seen — Et Ego In Arctis — Winter in Spitzen- 
 bergen — Ptarmigan — The Bear-Saga — The " Foam " Monument — 
 Southwards — Sight the Greenland Ice — A Gale — Wilson on the 
 Malstrom — Breakers Ahead — Roost — Taking a Sight — Throndhjem 182 
 
 LETTER XIL 
 Throndlijem — Harald Haarfager — King Hacon's Last Battle — Olaf Trygg- 
 vesson — The "Long Serpent" — St, Clave — Thormod the Scald — 
 The Jarl of Lade— The Cathedral— Harald Hardrada— The battle 
 of Stanford Bridge — A Norse Ball — Odin — And his Paladins 229 
 
 LETTER Xin. 
 Copenhagen— Bergen — The Black Death— Sigurdr — Homewards 257 
 
LETTERS 
 FROM HIGH LATITUDES, 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 PROTESILAUS STUMBLES ON THE THRESHOLD. 
 
 Glasgow, Monday, June 3, 1S56. 
 
 Our start has not been prosperous. Yesterday evening, 
 on passing Carlisle, a telegraphic message was put into my 
 hand, announcing the fact of the ^' Foam^' having been 
 obliged to put into Holyhead, in consequence of the sudden 
 illness of my Master. As the success of our expedition 
 entirely depends on our getting off before the season is 
 further advanced, you can understand how disagreeable it 
 is to have received this check at its very outset. As yet, 
 of course, I know nothing of the nature of the illness with 
 which he has been seized. However, I have ordered the 
 schooner to proceed at once to Oban, and I have sent back 
 the Doctor to Holyhead to overhaul the sick man. It is 
 rather early in the day for him to enter upon the exercise 
 of his functions. 
 
LETTER IT. 
 
 THE ICELANDER — A MODERN SIR PATRICK SPENS. 
 
 Greenock, Tuesday, June 3, 1856. 
 
 I found the Icelander awaiting my arrival here, — pacing 
 up and down the coifee-room like a Polar bear. 
 
 At first he was a little shy, and, not having yet had much 
 opportunity of practising his English, it was some time be- 
 fore I could set him perfectly at his ease. He has some- 
 thing so frank and honest in his face and bearing, that I 
 am certain he will turn out a pleasant companion. There 
 being no hatred so intense as that which you feel towards 
 a disagreeable shipmate, this assurance has relieved me of 
 a great anxiety, and I already feel I shall hereafter reckon 
 Sigurdr (pronounced Segurthur), the son of Jonas, among 
 the number of my best friends. 
 
 As most educated English people firmly believe the Ice- 
 landers to be a " Squawmuck," blubber-eating, seal-skin- 
 clad race, I think it right to tell you that Sigurdr is ap- 
 parelled in good broadcloth, and all the inconveniences of 
 civilization, his costume culminating in the orthodox chim- 
 ney-pot of the nineteenth century. He is about twenty- 
 seven, very intelligent-looking, and — all women would 
 think — lovely to behold. A high forehead, straight, deli- 
 cate features, dark blue eyes, auburn hair and beard, and 
 
 the complexion of — Lady S d ! His early life was 
 
 passed in Iceland ; but he is now residing at Copenhagen 
 as a law student. Through the introduction of a mutual 
 
II.] SIR PATRICK. 3 
 
 friend, he has been induced to come with me, and do us 
 the honors of his native land. 
 
 " O whar will I get a skeely skipper, 
 To sail this gude ship o' mine ? " 
 
 Such, alas ! has been the burden of my song for these last 
 four-and-twenty hours, as I have sat in the Tontine Tower, 
 drinking the bad port wine ; for, after spending a fortune 
 in telegraphic messages to Holyhead, it has been decided 
 
 that B cannot come on, and I have been forced to rig 
 
 up a Glasgow merchant skipper into a jury sailing-master. 
 
 Any such arrangement is, at the best, unsatisfactory ; 
 but to abandon the cruise is the only alternative. How- 
 ever, considering I had but a few hours to look about me, 
 I have been more fortunate than might have been expected. 
 I have had the luck to stumble on a young fellow, very 
 highly recommended by the Captain of the Port. He re- 
 turned just a fortnight ago from a trip to Australia, and, 
 having since married a wife, is naturally anxious not to lose 
 this opportunity of going to sea again for a few months. 
 
 I start to-morrow for Oban, via Inverary, which I wish 
 to show to my Icelander. At Oban I join the schooner, 
 and proceed to Stornaway, in the Hebrides ; whither the 
 undomestic Mr. Ebenezer Wyse (a descendant, probably, 
 of some W'estland Covenanter) is to follow me by ilia 
 steamer. 
 
LETTER TIT. 
 
 LOCH GUIL THE SAGA OF CLAN CAMPBELL. 
 
 Oban, June 5, 1856. 
 
 I have seldom enjoyed anything so much as our journey 
 yesterday. Getting clear at last of the smells, smoke, noise 
 and squalor of Greenock, to plunge into the very heart of 
 the Highland hills, robed as they were in the sunshine of a 
 beautiful summer day, was enough to make one beside one- 
 self with delight ; and the Icelander enjoyed it as much as 
 I did. Having crossed the Clyde, alive with innumerable 
 vessels, its waves dancing and sparkling in the sunlight, 
 we suddenly shot into the still and solemn Loch Goil, 
 whose waters, dark with mountain shadows, seemed almost 
 to belong to a different element from that of the yellow, 
 rushing, ship-laden river we had left. In fact, in the space 
 of ten minutes, we had got into another world, centuries 
 remote from the steaming, weaving, delving Britain, south 
 of Clyde. 
 
 After a sail of about three hours, we reached the head 
 of the loch, and then took coach along the worst mountain 
 road in Europe, towards the country of the world-invading 
 Campbells. A steady pull of three hours more, up a wild 
 bare glen, brought us to the top of the mica-slate ridge 
 which pens up Loch Fyne, on its western side, and dis- 
 closed what I have always thought the loveliest scene in 
 Scotland. 
 
 Far below at our feet, and stretching away on eithei 
 
III.] A LORDLY HOUSE. 5 
 
 hand among the mountains, lay the blue waters of the 
 lake. 
 
 On its other side, encompassed by a level belt of pasture- 
 land and corn-fields, the white little town of Inverary glit- 
 tered like a gem on the sea-shore j while to the right, amid 
 lawns and gardens, and gleaming banks of wood, that hung 
 down into the water, rose the dark towers of the Castle ; 
 the whole environed by an amphitheatre of tumbled por- 
 phyry hills, beyond whose fir-crowned crags rose the bare 
 blue mountain-tops of Lorn. 
 
 It was a perfect picture of peace and seclusion, and I 
 confess I had great pride in being able to show my com- 
 panion so fair a specimen of one of our lordly island homes 
 — the birthplace of a race of nobles whose names sparkle 
 down the page of their country's history as conspicuously 
 as the golden letters in an illuminated missal. 
 
 While descending towards the strand, I tried to amuse 
 Sigurdr with a sketch of the fortunes of the great house of 
 Argyll. 
 
 I told him how in ancient days three warriors came from 
 Green lerne, to dwell in the wild glens of Cowal and 
 Lochow, — how one of them, the swart Breachdan, all for 
 the love of blue-eyed Eila, swam the Gulf, once with a clew 
 of thread, then with a hempen rope, last with an iron chain ; 
 but this time, alas ! the returning tide sucks down the over- 
 tasked hero into its swirling vortex ; how Diarmid O' Duin, 
 i.e., son of "the Brown," slew with his own hand the 
 mighty boar, whose head still scowls over the escutcheon 
 of the Campbells ; — how in later times, while the murdered 
 Duncan's son, afterwards the great Malcolm Canmore, was 
 yet an exile at the court of his Northumbrian uncle, ere 
 Birnam wood had marched to Dunsinane, the first Camp- 
 bell /. e., Campus-bellus, Beau-champ, a Norman knight and 
 nephew of the Conqueror, having won the hand of tho 
 Lady Eva, sole heiress of the race of Diarmid, became 
 
6 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [IIL 
 
 master of the lands and lordships of Argyll ; how six gen- 
 erations later — each of them notable in their day — the 
 valiant Sir Colin created for his posterity a title prouder 
 than any within a sov^ereign's power to bestow, which no 
 forfeiture could attaint, no act of parliament recall ; for 
 though he cease to be Duke or Earl, the head of the Clan 
 Campbell will still remain Mac Calan More, — and how at 
 last the same Sir Colin fell at the String of Cowal, beneath 
 the sword of that fierce lord, whose grand-daughter was des- 
 tined to bind the honors of his own heirless house round 
 the coronet of his slain foeman's descendant; how Sir 
 Neill at Bannockburn fought side by side with the Bruce 
 whose sister he had married ; how Colin, the first Earl, 
 woed and won the Lady Isabel, sprung from the race of 
 Somerled, Lord of the Isles, thus adding the galleys of 
 Lorn to the blazonry of Argyll ; — how the next Earl died 
 at Flodden, and his successor fought not less disastrously 
 at Pinkie ; — how Archibald, fifth Earl, whose wife was at 
 supper with the Queen, her half-sister, when Rizzio was 
 murdered, fell on the field of Langside, smitten not by the 
 hand of the enemy, but by the finger of God ; how Colin, 
 Earl and boy-General at fifteen, was dragged away by force, 
 with tears in his eyes, from the unhappy skirmish at Glen- 
 livit, where his brave Highlanders were being swept down 
 by the artillery of Huntley and Errol, — destined to regild 
 his spurs in future years on the soil of Spain. 
 
 Then I told him of the Great Rebellion, and how, amid 
 the tumult of the next fifty years, the Grim Marquis — Gil- 
 lespie Grumach, as his squint caused him to be called — 
 Montrose's fatal foe, staked life and fortunes in the deadly 
 game engaged in by the fierce spirits of that generation, 
 and losing, paid the forfeit with his head, as calmly as be- 
 came a brave and noble gentleman, leaving an example, 
 which his son — already twice rescued from the scaffold, 
 once by a daughter of the ever-gallant house of Lindsay, 
 
III.] THE SAGA OF CLAAT CAMPBELL, 7 
 
 again a prisoner, and a rebel, because four years too soon 
 to be a patriot — as nobly imitated — ; how, at last, the 
 clouds of misfortune cleared away, and honors clustered 
 where only merit had been before j the martyr's aureole, 
 almost become hereditary, being replaced in the next gen- 
 eration by a ducal coronet, itself to be regilt in its turn 
 with a less sinister lustre by him — • 
 
 " The State's whole thunder born to wield, 
 And shake alike the senate and the field ; " 
 
 who baffled Walpole in the cabinet, and conquered with 
 Marlborough at Ramilies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet ; — • 
 and, last, — how at that present moment, even while we were 
 speaking, the heir to all these noble reminiscences, the 
 young chief of his princely line, had already won, at the 
 age of twenty-nine, by the manly vigor of his intellect and 
 his hereditary independence of character, the confidence 
 of his follow countrymen, and a seat at the council board 
 of his sovereign. 
 
 Having thus duly indoctrinated Sigurdr with the Sagas 
 of the family, as soon as we had crossed the lake I took 
 him up to the Castle, and acted cicerone to its pictures 
 and heirlooms, — the gleaming stands of muskets, whose 
 fire wrought such fatal ruin at Culloden ; — the portrait of 
 the beautiful Irish girl, twice a Duchess, whom the cun- 
 ning artist has painted with a sunflower that turns from 
 the sun to look at her; — Gillespie Grumach himself, as 
 grim and sinister-looking as in life ; the trumpets to carry 
 the voice from the hall door to Dunnaquaich j — the fair 
 beech avenues, planted by the old Marquis, now looking 
 with their smooth grey boles, and overhanging branches, 
 like the cloisters of an abbey ; — the vale of Esechasan, to 
 which, on the evening before his execution, the Earl wrote 
 such touching verses ; the quaint old kitchen-garden ; the 
 ruins of the ancient Castle, where worthy Major Dalgetty 
 is said to have passed such uncomfortable moments ; the 
 
8 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [III. 
 
 Celtic cross from lone lona ; all and everything I showed 
 off with as much pride and pleasure, I think, as if they had 
 been my own possessions ; and the more so as the Ice- 
 lander himself evidently sympathized with such Scald-like 
 gossip. 
 
 Having thoroughly overrun the woods and lawns of In- 
 verary, we had a game of chess, and went to bed pretty 
 well tired. 
 
 The next morning, before breakfast, I went off in a 
 boat to Ardkinglass to see my little cousins j and then re- 
 turning about twelve, we got a post-chaise, and crossing 
 the boastful Loch Awe in a ferry-boat, reached Oban at 
 nightfall. Here I had the satisfaction of finding the 
 schooner already arrived, and of being joined by the 
 Doctor, just returned from his fruitless expedition to Holy- 
 head. 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 THROUGH THE SOUNDS STORNAWAY THE SETTING UP OF 
 
 THE FIGURE-HEAD FITZ'S FORAY OH WEEL MAY THE 
 
 BOATIE ROW, THAT WINS THE BAIRNS' BREAD SIR 
 
 PATRICK SPENS JOINS — UP ANCHOR. 
 
 Stornaway, Island of Lewis, Hebrides, 1 
 June 9, 1856. ) 
 
 We reached these IsLinds of the West the day before 
 yesterday, after a fine run from Oban. 
 
 I had intended taking Staffa and lona on my way, but 
 it came on so thick with heavy weather from the south- 
 west, that to have landed on either island would have been 
 out of the question. So we bore up under Mull at one in 
 the morning, tore through the Sound at daylight, rounded 
 Ardnamurchan under a double-reefed mainsail at two p. m., 
 and shot into the Sound of Skye the same evening, leaving 
 the hills of Moidart (one of whose ''''seven men^'' was an 
 ancestor of your own), and the jaws of the hospitable Loch 
 Hourn, reddening in the stormy sunset. 
 
 At Kylakin we were obliged to bring up for the night \ 
 but getting under weigh again at daylight, we took a fair 
 wind with us along the east coast of Skye, passed Raasa 
 and Rona, and so across the Minch to Stornaway. 
 
 Stornaway is a little fishing town with a beautiful har- 
 bor, from out of which was sailing, as we entered, a fleet 
 of herring boats, their brown sails gleaming like gold 
 against the dark angry water as they fluttered out to sea, 
 
I O LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [IV. 
 
 unmindful of the leaden clouds banked up along the west, 
 and all the symptoms of an approaching gale. The next 
 morning it was upon us ; but brought up as we were under 
 the lee of a high rock, the tempest tore harmlessly over 
 our heads, and left us at liberty to make the final prepara- 
 tions for departure. 
 
 Fitz, whose talents for discerning where the vegetables, 
 fowls, and pretty ladies of a place were to be found, I had 
 already had occasion to admire, went ashore to forage ; 
 while I remained on board to superintend the fixing of our 
 sacred figure head — executed in bronze by Marochetti — 
 and brought along with me by rail, still warm from the 
 furnace. 
 
 For the performance of this solemnity I luckily pos- 
 sessed a functionary equal to the occasion, in the shape of 
 the second cook. Originally a guardsman, he had beaten 
 his sword into a chisel, and become carpenter; subse- 
 quently conceiving a passion for the sea, he turned his at- 
 tention to the mysteries of the kitchen, and now sails with 
 me in the alternate exercise of his two last professions. 
 This individual, thus happily combining the chivalry in- 
 herent in the profession of arms with the skill of the crafts- 
 man and the refinement of the artist — to whose person, 
 moreover, a paper cap, white vestments, and the sacrificial 
 knife at his girdle, gave something of a sacerdotal charac- 
 ter — I did not consider unfit to raise the ship's guardian 
 image to its appointed place ; and after two hours' rever- 
 ential handiwork, I had the satisfaction of seeing the well- 
 known lovely face, with its golden hair, and smile that 
 might charm all malice from the elements, beaming like a 
 happy omen above our bows. 
 
 Shortly afterwards Fitz came alongside, after a most 
 successful foray among the fish-wives. He was sitting in 
 the stern-sheets, up to his knees in vegetables, with seven 
 elderly hens beside him, and a dissipated looking cock un- 
 
IV.] SIR FA TRICICS GOLD CHAIN. 1 1 
 
 der his arm, with regard to whose qualifications its late 
 proprietor had volunteered the most satisfactory assur- 
 ances. I am also bound to mention, that protruding from 
 his coat-pocket were certain sheets of music, with the 
 name of " Alice Louisa," written therein in a remarkably 
 pretty hand, which led me to believe that the Doctor had 
 not entirely confined his energies to the acquisition of hens 
 and vegetables. The rest of the day was spent in packing 
 away our newly-purchased stores, and making the ship as 
 tidy as circumstances would admit. I am afraid, however, 
 many a smart yachtsman would have been scandalized at 
 our decks, lumbered up with hen-coops, sacks of coal, and 
 other necessaries, which, like the Queen of Spain's legs, 
 not only ought never to be seen, but must not be supposed 
 even to exist, on board a tip top craft. 
 
 By the evening, the gale, which had been blowing all 
 day, had increased to a perfect hurricane. At nine o'clock 
 we let go a second anchor ; and I confess, as we sat com- 
 fortably round the fire in the bright cheerful little cabin, 
 and listened to the wind whistling and shrieking through 
 the cordage, that none of us were sorry to find ourselves 
 in port on such a night, instead of tossing on the wild At- 
 lantic — though we little knew that even then the destroy- 
 ing angel was busy with the fleet of fishing boats which 
 had put to sea so gallantly on the evening of our arrival. 
 By morning the neck of the gale was broken, and the sun 
 shone brightly on the white rollers as they chased each 
 other to the shore ; but a Queen's ship was steaming into 
 the bay, with sad news of ruin out to seaward, — towing be- 
 hind her, boats, water-logged, or bottom upwards, — while 
 a silent crowd of women on the quay were waiting to learn 
 on what homes among them the bolt had fallen. 
 
 About twelve o'clock the Glasgow packet came in, and a 
 few minutes afterwards I had the honor of receiving on 
 my quarter-deck a gentleman who seemed a cross between 
 
12 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [IV. 
 
 the German student and the swell commercial gent. On h s 
 head he wore a queer kind of smoking-cap, with the peak 
 cocked over his left ear ; then came a green shooting 
 jacket, and flashy silk tartan waistcoat, set off by a gold 
 chain, hung about in innumerable festoons, — while light 
 trousers and knotty Wellington boots completed his cos- 
 tume, and made the wearer look as little like a seaman as 
 need be. It appeared, nevertheless, that the individual in 
 question was Mr. Ebenezer Wyse, my new sailing-master ; 
 so I accepted Captain C.'s strong recommendation as a 
 set-off against the silk tartan ; explained to the new comer 
 the position he was to occupy on board, and gave orders 
 for sailing in an hour. The multitudinous chain, more- 
 over, so lavishly displayed, turned out to be an ornament 
 of which Mr. Wyse might well be proud ; and the follow- 
 ing history of its acquisition reconciled me more than any- 
 thing else to my Master's unnautical appearance. 
 
 Some time ago there was a great demand in Australia 
 for small river steamers, which certain Scotch companies 
 undertook to supply. The difficulty, however, was to get 
 such fragile tea-kettles across the ocean ; five started one 
 after another in murderous succession, and each came to 
 grief before it got half way to the equator ; the sixth alone 
 remained with which to try a last experiment. Should she 
 arrive, her price would more than compensate the pecuni- 
 ary loss already sustained, though it could not bring to life 
 the hands sacrificed in the mad speculation ; by this time, 
 however, even the proverbial recklessness of the seamen 
 of the port was daunted, and the hearts of two crews had 
 already failed them at the last moment of starting, when 
 my friend of the chain volunteered to take the command. 
 At the outset of his voyage everything went well ; a fair 
 wind (her machinery was stowed away, and she sailed un- 
 der canvas) carried the little craft in an incredibly short 
 time a thousand miles to the southward of the Cape, when 
 
IV.J SIR PATRICK'S GOLD CHAIN. 13 
 
 one day, as she was running before the gale, the man at 
 the wheel — startled at a sea which he thought was going 
 to poop her — let go the helm ; the vessel broached to, and 
 tons of water tumbled in on the top of the deck. As soon 
 as the confusion of the moment had subsided, it became 
 evident that the shock had broken some of the iron plates, 
 and that the ship w^as in a fair way of foundering. So 
 frightened were the crew, that, after consultation with each 
 other, they determined to take to the boats, and all hands 
 came aft, to know whether there was anything the skipper 
 would wish to carry off with him. Comprehending the 
 madness of attempting to reach land in open boats at the 
 distance of a thousand miles from any shore, Wyse pre- 
 tended to go into the cabin to get his compass, chronom- 
 eter, etc., but returning immediately with a revolver in 
 each hand, swore he would shoot the first man who at- 
 tempted to touch the boats. This timely exhibition of 
 spirit saved their lives : soon after the weather moderated; 
 by undergirding the ship with chains, St. Paul fashion, the 
 leaks were partially stopped, the steamer reached her des- 
 tination, and was sold for 7,000/, a few days after her ar- 
 rival. In token of their gratitude for the good service he 
 had done them, the company presented Mr. Wyse on his 
 return with a gold watch, and the chain he wears so glori- 
 ously outside the silk tartan waistcoat. 
 
 And now, good-bye. I hear the click-click of the chain 
 as they heave the anchor ; I am rather tired and exhaust- 
 ed with all the worry of the last two months, and shall be 
 heartily glad to get to sea, where fresh air will set me up 
 again, I hope, in a few days. My next letter will be from 
 Iceland ; and, please God, before I see English land again, 
 I hope to have many a story to tell you of the islands that 
 are washed by the chill waters of the Arctic Sea. 
 
LETTER V. 
 
 THE NORTH ATLANTIC — SPANISH WAVES — OUR CABIN IN A 
 
 GALE SEA-SICKNESS FROM A SCIENTIFIC POINT OF VIEW 
 
 WILSON A PASSENGER COMMITS SUICIDE FIRST 
 
 SIGHT OF ICELAND — FLOKI OF THE RAVENS THE NORSE 
 
 MAYFLOWER FAXA FIORD WE LAND IN THULE. 
 
 Reykjavik, Iceland, June 21, 1855. 
 
 We have landed in Thule ! When, in parting, you moan- 
 ed so at the thought of not being able to hear of our safe 
 arrival, I knew there would be an opportunity of writing to 
 you almost immediately after reaching Iceland ; but I said 
 nothing about it at the time, lest something should delay 
 this letter, and you be left to imagine all kinds of doleful 
 reasons for its non-appearance. We anchored in Reyk- 
 javik harbour this afternoon (Saturday). H. M. S. " Coquette^' 
 sails for England on Monday ; so that within a week you 
 will get this. 
 
 For the last ten days we have been leading the life of the 
 
 " Flying Dutchman.!' Never do I remember to have had 
 
 such a dusting : foul winds, gales, and calms — or rather 
 
 breathing spaces, which the gale took occasionally to muster 
 
 up fresh energies for a blow — with a heavy head sea, that 
 
 prevented our sailing even when we got a slant. On the 
 
 afternoon of the day we quitted Stornaway, I got a notion 
 
 how it was going to be ; the sun went angrily down behind 
 
 a bank of solid grey cloud, and by the time we were up 
 
 with the Butt of Lewis, the whole sky v/as in tatters, and the 
 
 mercury nowhere, with a heavy swell from the north-west. 
 '14 
 
v.] TREATMENT FOR SEA SICKNESS. 1 5 
 
 As, two years before, I had spent a week in trying to beat 
 through the Roost of Sumburgh under double-reefed try- 
 sails, I was at home in the weather; and guessing we were 
 in for it, sent down the topmasts, stowed the boats on board, 
 handed the foresail, rove the ridge-ropes, and reefed all 
 down. By midnight it blew a gale, which continued with- 
 out intermission until the day we sighted Iceland ; some- 
 times increasing to a hurricane, but broken now and then 
 by sudden lulls, which used to leave us for a couple of hours 
 at a time tumbling about on the top of the great Atlantic 
 rollers — or Spanish waves, as they are called — until I 
 thought the ship would roll the masts out of her. Why 
 they should be called Spanish waves, no one seems to know ; 
 but I had always heard the seas were heavier here than in 
 any other part of the world, and certainly they did not belie 
 their character. The little ship behaved beautifully, and 
 many a vessel twice her size would have been less comfort- 
 able. Indeed, few people can have any notion of the cosi- 
 ness of a yacht's cabin under such circumstances. After 
 having remained for several hours on deck, in the presence 
 of the tempest, — peering through the darkness at those 
 black liquid walls of water, mounting above you in cease- 
 less agitation, or tumbling over in cataracts of gleaming 
 foam, — the wind roaring through the rigging, — timbers 
 creaking as if the ship would break its heart, — the spray 
 and rain beating in your face, — everything around in tumult, 
 suddenly to descend into the quiet of a snug, well-lighted 
 little cabin, with the firelight dancing on the white rosebud 
 chintz, the well-furnished book-shelves, and all the innum- 
 erable nick-nacks that decorate its walls, — little Edith's 
 portrait looking so serene, — everything about you as bright 
 and fresh as a lady's boudoir in May Fair, — the certainty 
 of being a good three hundred miles from any troublesome 
 shore, — all combine to inspire a feeling of comfort and se- 
 curity difficult to describe. 
 
t6 letters from high la ti tubes. [V. 
 
 These pleasures, indeed, for the first days of our voyage, 
 the Icelander had pretty much to himself. I was laid up 
 with a severe bout of illness I had long felt coming on, and 
 Fitz was sea-sick. I must say, however, I never saw any 
 one behave with more pluck and resolution j and when we 
 return, the first thing you do must be to thank him for his 
 kindness to me on that occasion. Though himself almost 
 prostrate, he looked after me as indefatigably as if he had 
 already found his sea legs ; and, sitting down on the cabin 
 floor, with a basin on one side of him, and a pestle and 
 mortar on the other, used to manufacture my pills, between 
 the paroxysms of his malady, with a decorous pertinacity 
 that could not be too much admired. 
 
 Strangely enough, too, his state of unhappiness lasted a 
 few days longer than the eight-and-forty hours which are 
 generally sufficient to set people on their feet again. I 
 tried to console him by representing what an occasion it 
 was for observing the phenomena of sea-sickness from a 
 scientific point of view ; and I must say he set to work 
 most conscientiously to discover some remedy. Brandy, 
 prussic acid, opium, champagne, ginger, mutton-chops, and 
 tumblers of salt-water, were successively exhibited ; but, 
 I regret to say, after a few minutes, each in turn r^-exhibited 
 itself with monotonous punctuality. Indeed, at one time 
 we thought he would never get over; and the following 
 conversation, which I overheard one morning between him 
 and my servant, did not brighten his hopes of recovery. 
 
 This person's name is Wilson, and of all men I ever met 
 he is the most desponding. Whatever is to be done, he is 
 sure to see a lion in the path. Life in his eyes is a perpe- 
 tual filling of leaky buckets, and a rolling of stones up hill. 
 He is amazed when the bucket holds water, or the stone 
 perches on the summit. He professes but a limited belief 
 in his star, — and success with him is almost a disappoint- 
 ment. His countenance corresponds with the prevailing 
 
v.] FIRST SIGHT OF ICELAND. 17 
 
 character of his thoughts, always hopelessly chapfallen; 
 his voice is as of the tomb. He brushes my clothes, lays 
 the cloth, opens the champagne, with the air of one advan- 
 cing to his execution. I have never seen him smile but once, 
 when he came to report to me that a sea had nearly swept 
 his colleague, the steward, overboard. The son of a gard- 
 ener at Chiswick, he first took to horticulture ; then emig- 
 rated as a settler to the Cape, where he acquired his pres- 
 ent complexion, which is of a grass-green ; and finally ser- 
 ved as a steward on board an Australian steam-packet. 
 
 Thinking to draw consolation from his professional ex- 
 periences, I heard Fitz's voice, now very weak, say in a tone 
 of coaxing cheerfulness, — 
 
 " Well, Wilson, I suppose this kind of thing does not last 
 long ? " 
 
 The Voice, as of the tomb. — " I don't know. Sir." 
 
 Fitz. — " But you must have often seen passengers sick.'* 
 
 The Voice. — " Often, Sir ; very sick." 
 
 Fitz. — " Well, and on an average, how soon did they re- 
 
 cover 
 
 ?" 
 
 The Voice. — " Some of them didn't recover. Sir." 
 
 Fitz.—'' Well, but those that did ? " 
 
 The Voice. — " I know'd a clergyman and his wife as were 
 ill all the voyage ; five months, Sir." 
 
 Fitz. — (Quite silent.) 
 
 The Voice ; now become sepulchral. — They sometimes dies, 
 Sir." 
 
 Fitz.—'' Ugh ! " 
 
 Before the end of the voyage, however, this Job's com- 
 forter himself fell ill, and the Doctor amply revenged him- 
 self by prescribing for him. 
 
 Shortly after this, a very melancholy occurrence took 
 place. I had observed for some days past, as we proceed- 
 ed north, and the nights became shorter, that the cock we 
 shipped at Stornaway had become quite bewildered on the 
 
 2 
 
l8 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [V. 
 
 subject of that meteorological phenomenon called the Dawn 
 of Day. In fact, I doubt whether he ever slept for more 
 than five minutes at a stretch, without waking up in a state 
 of nervous agitation, lest it should be cock-crow. At last, 
 when night ceased altogether, his constitution could no 
 longer stand the shock. He crowed once or twice sarcasti- 
 cally, then went melancholy mad : finally, taking a calen- 
 ture, he cackled lowly (probably of green fields), and leap- 
 ing overboard, drowned himself. The mysterious manner 
 in which every day a fresh member of his harem used to 
 disappear, may also have preyed upon his spirits. 
 
 At last, on the morning of the eighth day, we began to 
 look out for land. The weather had greatly improved 
 during the night ; and, for the first time since leaving the 
 Hebrides, the sun had got the better of the clouds, and 
 driven them in confusion before his face. The sea, losing 
 its dead leaden color, had become quite crisp and burnish- 
 ed, darkling into a deep sapphire blue against the horizon ; 
 beyond which, at about nine o'clock, there suddenly shot 
 up towards the zenith, a pale, gold aureole, such as precedes 
 the appearance of the good fairy at a pantomime farce ; 
 then, gradually lifting its huge back above the water, rose 
 a silver pyramid of snow, which I knew must be the cone 
 of an ice mountain, miles away in the interior of the island. 
 From the moment we got hold of the land, our cruise, as 
 you may suppose, doubled in interest. Unfortunately, how- 
 ever the fair morning did not keep its promise ; about one 
 o'clock, the glittering mountain vanished in mist ; the sky 
 again became like an inverted pewter cup, and we had to 
 return for two more days to our old practice of threshing 
 to windward. So provoked was I at this relapse of the 
 weather, that, perceiving a whale blowing convenient., I could 
 not help suggesting to Sigurdr, son of Jonas, that it was an 
 ■occasion for observing the traditions of his family ; but he ex- 
 cused himself on the plea of their having become obsolete. 
 
V.J BAY OF FAXA FIORD. 19 
 
 The mountain we had seen in the morning was the south 
 east extremity of the Island, the very landfall made by one 
 of its first discoverers. ■*• This gentleman not having a com- 
 pass, (he lived about a. d. 864.) not knowing exactly where 
 the land lay, took on board with him, at starting, three 
 consecrated ravens — as an M. P. would take three well 
 trained pointers to his moor. Having sailed a certain 
 distance he let loose one, which flew back : by this he judged 
 he had not got half-way. Proceeding onwards, he loosed 
 the second, which after circling in the air for some min- 
 utes in apparent uncertainty, also made off home, as though 
 it still remained a nice point which were the shorter course 
 towards terra firma. But the third, on obtaining his liberty 
 a few days later, flew forward, and by following the direc- 
 tion in which he had disappeared, Rabna Floki, or Floki 
 of the Ravens, as he came to be called, triumphantly made 
 the land. 
 
 The real colonists did not arrive till some years later, 
 for I do not much believe a story they tell of Christian rel- 
 ics, supposed to have been left by Irish fishermen, 
 found on the Westmann islands. A Scandinavian king, 
 named Harold HaarEager (a contemporary of our own King 
 Alfred's) having murdered, burnt, and otherwise extermi- 
 nated all his brother kings who at that time grew as thick 
 as blackberries in Norway, first consolidated their domin- 
 
 I There is in Strabo an account of a voyage made by a citizen of 
 the Greek colony of Marseilles, in the time of Alexander the Great, 
 through the Pillars of Hercules, along the coasts of France and Spain 
 up the English Channel, and so across the North Sea, past an island 
 he calls Thule ; his further progress, he asserted, was hindered by a 
 barrier of a peculiar nature, — neither earth, air, nor sky, but a compound 
 of all three, forming a thick viscid substance whicii it was impossible 
 to penetrate. Now, whether this same Thule was one of the Shetland 
 islands, and the impassable substance merely a fog, — or Island, and 
 the barricade beyond, a wall of ice, it is impossible to say. Probably 
 Pythias did not get beyond the Shetlands. 
 
20 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [V. 
 
 ions into one realm, as Edgar did the Heptarchy, and then 
 proceeded to invade the Udal rights of the landholders. 
 Some of them animated with that love of liberty innate in 
 the race of the noble Northmen, rather than submit to his 
 oppressions, determined to look for a new home amid the 
 desolate regions of the icy sea. Freighting a dragon-shap- 
 ed galley — the " Mayflower " of the period — with their wives 
 and children, and all the household monuments that were 
 clear to them, they saw the blue peaks of their dear Nor- 
 way hills sink down into the sea behind, and manfully set 
 their face towards the west, where — some vague report had 
 v/hispered — a new land might be found. Arrived in sight 
 of Iceland, the leader of the expedition threw the sacred 
 pillars belonging to his former dwelling into the water, in 
 order that the gods might determine the site of his new 
 home : carried by the tide no one could say in what direc- 
 tion, they were at last discovered, at the end of three years, 
 in a sheltered bay on the west side of the island, and Ingolf i 
 came and abode there, and the place became in the course 
 of years Reykjavik, the capital of the country. 
 
 Sigurdr having scouted the idea of acting Iphigenia, 
 there was nothing for it but steadily to beat over the 
 remaining hundred and fifty miles, which still separated us 
 from Cape Reikianess. After going for two days hard at 
 it, and sighting the Westmann islands, we ran plump into 
 a fog, and lay to. In a few hours, however, it cleared up 
 into a lovely sunny day, with a warm summer breeze just 
 rippling up the water. Before us lay the long wished-for 
 Cape, with the Meal-sack, — a queer stump of basalt, that 
 flops up out of the sea, fifteen miles south-west of Cape 
 Reikianess, its flat top white with guano, like the mouth of 
 a bag of flour, — five miles on our port bow ; and seldom 
 have I remembered a pleasanter four-and-twenty hours 
 
 I It was in consequence of a domestic feud that Ingolf himself was 
 forced to emigrate. 
 
V.J BAY OF FAX A FIORD. 2 1 
 
 than those spent stealing up along the gnarled and crum- 
 pled lava flat that forms the western coast of Guldbrand 
 Syssel. Such fishing, shooting, looking through telescopes, 
 and talking of what was to be done on our arrival ! Like 
 Antaeus, Sigurdr seemed twice the man he was before, at 
 sight of his native land ; and the Doctor grew nearly lunatic 
 when after stalking a solent goose asleep on the water, the 
 bird flew away at the moment the schooner hove within shot. 
 
 The panorama of the bay of Faxa Fiord is magnificent, 
 — with a width of fifty miles from horn to horn, the one 
 running down into a rocky ridge of pumice, the other 
 towering to the height of five thousand feet in a pyramid 
 of eternal snow, while round the intervening semicircle 
 crowd the peaks of a hundred noble mountains. As you 
 approach the shore, you are very much reminded of the 
 west coast of Scotland, except that everything is more 
 intense — the atmosphere clearer, the light more vivid, the 
 air more bracing, the hills steeper, loftier, more tormented, 
 as the French say, and more gaunt ; while between their 
 base and the sea stretches a dirty greenish slope, patched 
 with houses which themselves, both roof and walls, are of 
 mouldy green, as if some long-since inhabited country had 
 been fished up out of the bottom of the sea. 
 
 The effects of light and shadow are the purest I ever 
 saw, the contrasts of color most astonishing, — one square 
 front of a mountain jutting out in a blaze of gold against 
 the flank of another, dyed of the darkest purple, while up 
 against the azure sky beyond, rise peaks of glittering snow 
 and ice. The snow, however, beyond serving as an orna- 
 mental fringe to the distance, plays but a very poor part at 
 this season of the year in Iceland. While I write, the 
 thermometer is above 70''. Last night we remained iDla3dng 
 at chess on deck till bedtime, without thinking of calling 
 for coats, and my people live in their shirt-sleeves, and — 
 astonishment at the climate. 
 
22 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES, [V. 
 
 And now, good-bye. I cannot tell you how I am enjoy- 
 ing myself, body and soul. Already I feel much stronger, 
 and before I return I trust to have laid in a stock of health 
 sufficient to last the family for several generations. 
 
 Remember me to , and tell her she looks too 
 
 lovely ; her face has become of a beautiful bright green— 
 a complexion which her golden crown sets off to the great- 
 est advantage. I wish she could have seen, as we sped 
 across, how passionately the waves of the Atlantic flung 
 their liquid arms about her neck, and how proudly she 
 broke through their embraces, leaving them far behind, 
 moaning and lamenting. 
 
LETTER VI. 
 
 REYKJAVIK LATIN CONVERSATION — I BECOME THE PROPRI- 
 ETOR OF TWENTY-SIX HORSES EIDER DUCKS BESSESTAD 
 
 SNORRO STURLESON THE OLD GREENLAND COLONY 
 
 FINLAND A GENOESE SKIPPER IN THE FIFTEENTH CEN- 
 TURY AN ICELANDIC DINNER SKOAL AN AFTER-DIN- 
 NER SPEECH IN LATIN WINGED RABBITS DUCROW 
 
 START OF THE BAGGAGE-TRAIN. 
 
 Reykjavik, June 28, 1856. 
 
 Notwithstanding that its site, as I mentioned in my 
 last letter, was determined by auspices not less divine than 
 those of Rome or Athens, Reykjavik is not so fine a city 
 as either, though its public buildings may be thought to be 
 in better repair. In fact, the town consists of a collection 
 of wooden sheds, one story high — rising here and there 
 into a gable end of greater pretensions — built along the 
 lava beach, and flanked at either end by a suburb of turf 
 huts. 
 
 On every side of it extends a desolate plain of lava that 
 once must have boiled up red-hot from some distant gate- 
 way of hell, and fallen hissing into the sea. No tree or 
 bush relieves the dreariness of the landscape, and the 
 mountains are too distant to serve as a background to the 
 buildings ; but before the door of each merchant's house 
 facing the sea, there flies a gay little pennon ; and as you 
 walk along the silent streets, whose dust no carriage-wheel 
 has ever desecrated, the rows of flower-pots that peep out 
 
24 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VI, 
 
 of the windows, between curtains of white muslin, at once 
 convince you that notwithstanding their unpretending ap- 
 pearance, within each dwelling reign the elegance and 
 comfort of a woman-tended home. 
 
 Thanks to Sigurdr's popularity among his countrymen, 
 by the second day after our arrival we found ourselves no 
 longer in a strange land. With a frank energetic cordiality 
 that quite took one by surprise, the gentlemen of the place 
 at once welcomed us to their firesides, and made us feel 
 that we could give them no greater pleasure than by 
 claiming their hospitality. As, however, it is necessary, 
 if we are to reach Jan Mayen and Spitzbergen this sum- 
 mer, that our stay in Iceland should not be prolonged 
 above a certain date, I determined at once to make prepar- 
 ations for our expedition to the Geysirs and the interior of 
 the country. Our plan at present, after visiting the hot 
 springs, is to return to Reykjavik, and stretch right across 
 the middle of the island to the north coast — scarcely ever 
 visited by strangers. Thence we shall sail straight away 
 to Jan Mayen. 
 
 In pursuance of this arrangement, the first thing to do 
 was to buy some horses. Away, accordingly, we went in 
 the gig to the little pier leading up to the merchant's house 
 who had kindly promised Sigurdr to provide them. Ever)^- 
 thing in the country that is not made of wood is made of 
 lava. The pier was constructed out of huge boulders of 
 lava, the shingle is lava, the sea-sand is pounded lava, the 
 mud on the roads is lava paste, the foundations of the 
 houses are lava blocks, and in dry weather you are blinded 
 with lava dust. Immediately upon landing I was presen- 
 ted to a fine, burly gentleman, who, I was informed, could 
 let me have a steppe-ful of horses if I desired, and a few 
 minutes afterwards I picked myself up in the middle of a 
 Latin oration on the subject of the weather. Having sud- 
 denly lost my nominative case, I concluded abruptly with 
 
VI.] BECOME PROPRIETOR OF 2^ HORSES. 25 
 
 the figure syncope, and a bow, to which my interlocutor 
 politely replied "Ita." Many of the inhabitants speak 
 English, and one or two French, but in default of either of 
 these, your only chance is Latin. At first I found great 
 difficulty in brushing up anything sufficiently conversa- 
 tional, more especially as it was necessary to broaden out 
 the vowels in the high Roman fashion ; but a little practice 
 soon made me more fluent, and I got at last to brandish my 
 f Pergratum est," etc., in the face of a new acquaintance, 
 without any misgivings. On this occasion I thought it 
 more prudent to let Sigurdr make the necessary arrange- 
 ments for our journey, and in a few minutes I had the sat- 
 isfaction of learning that I had become the proprietor of 
 twenty-six horses, as many bridles and pack-saddles, and 
 three guides. 
 
 There being no roads in Iceland, all the traffic of the 
 country is conducted by means of horses, along the bridle- 
 tracks which centuries of travel have worn in the lava plains. 
 As but little hay is to be had, the winter is a season of fast- 
 ing for all cattle, and it is not until spring is well advanced, 
 and the horses have had time to grow a little fat on the 
 young grass, that you can go a journey. I was a good deal 
 taken aback when the number of my stud was announced 
 to me ; but it appears that what with the photographic ap- 
 paratus, which I am anxious to take, and our tent, it would 
 be impossible to do with fewer animals. The price of each 
 pony is very moderate, and I am told F shall have no dif- 
 ficulty in disposing of all of them, at the conclusion of our 
 expedition. 
 
 These preliminaries happily concluded, Mr. J ■ in- 
 vited us into his house, where his wife and daughter — a 
 sunshiny young lady of eighteen — were waiting to receive 
 us. As Latin here was quite useless, we had to entrust 
 Sigurdr with all the pretty things we desired to convey to 
 our entertainers j but it is my firm opinion that that gen- 
 
26 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TL TUBES. [VI. 
 
 tleman took a dirty advantage of us, and intercepting the 
 choicest flowers of our eloquence, appropriated them to the 
 advancement of his ov^n interests. However, such expres- 
 sions of respectful admiration as he suffered to reach their 
 destination were received very graciously^ and rewarded 
 with a shower of smiles. 
 
 The next few days were spent in making short expedi- 
 tions in the neighborhood, in preparing our baggage-train, 
 and in paying visits. It would be too long for me to enu- 
 merate all the marks of kindness and hospitality I received 
 during this short period. Suffice it to say, that I had the 
 satisfaction of making many very interesting acquaintances, 
 of beholding a great number of very pretty faces, and of 
 partaking of an innumerable quantity of luncheons. In 
 fact, to break bread, or, more correctly speaking, to crack 
 a bottle with the master of the house, is as essential an ele- 
 ment of a morning call as the making a bow or shaking 
 hands, and to refuse to take off your glass would be as 
 great an incivility as to decline taking off your hat. From 
 earliest times, as the grand old ballad of the King of Thule 
 tells us, a beaker was considered the fittest token a lady 
 could present to her true-love — 
 
 lUcm ftcrbcnii fcinc Buljle 
 Cincn golirnen l3cd)iT gab. 
 
 And in one of the most ancient Eddaic songs it is writ- 
 ten, " Drink, Runes, must thou know, if thou wilt main- 
 tain thy power over the maiden thou lovest. Thou shalt 
 score them on the drinking-horn, on the back of thy hand, 
 and the word naud " (iieed — necessity) "on thy nail." 
 Moreover, when it is remembered that the ladies of the 
 house themselves minister on these occasions, it will be 
 easily understood that all flinching is out of the question. 
 What is a man to do, when a wicked little golden-haired 
 maiden insists on pouring him out a bumper, and dumb 
 
VI.J AN ICELANDIC LADY'S DRESS. 27 
 
 show is the only means of remonstrance ? Why, of course, 
 if death were in the cup, he must make her a leg, and drain 
 it to the bottom, as I did. In conclusion, I am bound to 
 add that, notwithstanding the bacchanalian character pre- 
 vailing in these visits, I derived from them much interest- 
 ing and useful information ; and I have invariably found 
 the gentlemen to whom I have been presented persons of 
 education and refinement, combined with a happy, healthy, 
 jovial temperament, that invests their conversation with a 
 peculiar charm. 
 
 At this moment people are in a great state of excite- 
 ment at the expected arrival of H. I. H. Prince Napoleon, 
 and two days ago a large full-rigged ship came in laden 
 with coal for his use. The day after we left Stornaway, we 
 had seen her scudding away before the gale on a due west 
 course, and guessed she was bound for Iceland, and run- 
 ning down the longitude ; but as we arrived here four days 
 before her, our course seems to have been a better one. 
 The only other ship here is the French frigate " Arteinise,''^ 
 Commodore Dumas, by whom I have been treated with the 
 greatest kindness and civility. 
 
 On Saturday we went to Vedey, a beautiful little green 
 island where the eider ducks breed, and build nests with 
 the soft under-down plucked from their own bosoms. Af- 
 ter the little ones are hatched, and their birthplaces "desert- 
 ed, the nests are gathered, cleaned, and stuffed into pillow- 
 cases, for pretty ladies in Europe to lay their soft, warm 
 cheeks upon, and sleep the sleep of the innocent ; while 
 long-legged, broad-shouldered Englishmen protrude from 
 between them at German inns, like the ham from a sand- 
 wich, and cannot sleep, however innocent. 
 
 The next day, being Sunday, I read prayers on board, 
 and then went for a short time to the cathedral church, — 
 the only stone building in Reykjavik. It is a moderate- 
 sized, unpretending place, capable of holding three or four 
 
28 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VI. 
 
 hundred persons, erected in very ancient times, but lately 
 restored. The Icelanders are of the Lutheran religion ; 
 and a Lutheran clergyman, in a black gown, etc., with a 
 ruff round his neck, such as our bishops are painted in 
 about the time of James the First, was preaching a ser- 
 mon. It was the first time I had heard Icelandic spoken 
 continuously, and it struck me as a singularly sweet car- 
 essing language, although I disliked the particular cadence, 
 amounting almost to a chant, with which each sentence 
 ended. 
 
 As in every church where pra3'ers have been offered up 
 since the world began, the majority of the congregation 
 were women, some few dressed in bonnets, and the rest in 
 the national black silk skull-cap, set jauntily on one side 
 of the head, with a long black tassel hanging down to the 
 shoulder, or else in a quaint mitre of white linen, of which 
 a drawing alone could give you an idea ; the remainder of 
 an Icelandic lady's costume, when not superseded by Paris 
 fashions, consists of a black bodice fastened in front with 
 silver clasps, over which is drawn a cloth jacket, ornamen- 
 ted with a multitude of silver buttons ; round the neck 
 goes a stiff ruff of velvet, figured with silver lace, and a sil- 
 ver belt, often beautifully chased, binds the long dark 
 wadmal petticoat round the waist. Sometimes the orna- 
 ments are of gold instead of silver, and very costly. 
 
 Before dismissing his people, the preacher descended 
 from the pulpit, and putting on a splendid cope of crimson 
 velvet (in which some bishop had in ages past been mur- 
 dered), turned his back to the congregation, and chanted 
 some Latin sentences in good round Roman style. Though 
 still retaining in their ceremonies a few vestiges of the old 
 religion, though altars, candles, pictures, and crucifixes, 
 yet remain in many of their churches, the Icelanders are 
 staunch Protestants, and, by all accounts, the most devout, 
 innocent, pure-hearted people in the world. Crime, theft, 
 
VI.] A FARM-STEADING. 29 
 
 debauchery, cruelty, are unknown amongst them ; they 
 have neither prison, gallows, soldiers, nor police ; and in 
 the manner of the lives they lead among their secluded val- 
 leys, there is something of a patriarchal simplicity, that re- 
 minds one of the Old World princes, of whom it has been 
 said, that they were "upright and perfect, eschewing evil, 
 and in their hearts no guile." 
 
 The law with regard to marriage, however, is sufficient- 
 ly peculiar. When, from some unhappy incompatibility of 
 temper, a married couple live so miserably together as to 
 render life insupportable, it is competent for them to ap- 
 ply to the Danish Governor of the island for a divorce. 
 If after the lapse of three years from the date of the appli- 
 cation, both are still of the same mind, and equally eager 
 to be free, the divorce is granted, and each is at liberty to 
 marry again. 
 
 The next day it had been arranged that we were to take 
 an experimental trip on our new ponies, under the guid- 
 ance of the learned and jovial Rector of the College. Un- 
 fortunately the weather was dull and rainy, but we were de- 
 termined to enjoy ourselves in spite of everything, and a 
 pleasanter ride I have seldom had. The steed Sigurdr 
 had purchased for me was a long-tailed, hog-maned, shag- 
 gy, cow-houghed creature, thirteen hands high, of a bright 
 yellow color, with admirable action, and sure-footed enough 
 to walk downstairs backwards. The Doctor was not less 
 well mounted ; in fact, the Icelandic pony is quite a pecu- 
 liar race, much stronger, faster, and better bred than the 
 Highland shelty, and descended probably from pure-blood- 
 ed sires that scoured the steppes of Asia, long before 
 Odin and his paladins had peopled the valleys of Scandi- 
 navia. 
 
 The first few miles of our ride lay across an undulating 
 plain of dolorite, to a farm situated at the head of an inlet 
 of the sea. At a distance, the farm-steading looked like a 
 
so LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VI 
 
 little oasis of green, amid the grey stony slopes that sur- 
 rounded it, and on a nearer approach not unlike the ves- 
 tiges of a Celtic earthwork, with the tumulus of a hero or 
 two in the centre ; but the mounds turned out to be noth- 
 ing more than the grass roofs of the house and ofhces, and 
 the banks and dykes but circumvallations round the plot 
 of most carefully cleaned meadow, called the "tun," which 
 always surrounds every Icelandic farm. This word " tun " 
 is evidently identical with our own Irish " towiiland^^^ the 
 Cornish '"''town''' and the Scotch ''''toon''' — terms which, in 
 their local signification, do not mean a congregation of 
 streets and buildings, but the yard, and spaces of grass 
 immediately adjoining a single house ; just as in German 
 we have " tzaim^'^ and in the Dutch '•'' tuyn^'' a garden. 
 
 Turning to the right, round the head of a little bay, we 
 passed within forty yards of an enormous eagle, seated on 
 a crag ; but we had no rifle, and all he did was to rise 
 heavily into the air, flap his wings like a barn-door fowl, 
 and plump lazily down twenty yards farther off. Soon 
 after, the district we traversed became more igneous, 
 wrinkled, cracked, and ropy than anything we had yet 
 seen, and another two hours' scamper over such a track as 
 till then I would not have believed horses could have 
 traversed, even at a foot's pace, brought us to the solitary 
 farm-house of Bessestad. Fresh from the neat homesteads 
 of England that we had left sparkling in the bright spring 
 weather, and sheltered by immemorial elms, — the scene 
 before us looked expressibly desolate. In front rose a 
 cluster of weather-beaten wooden buildings, and huts like 
 ice-houses, surrounded by a scanty plot of grass, reclaimed 
 from the craggy plain of broken lava that stretched — the 
 home of ravens and foxes — on either side to the horizon. 
 Beyond, lay a low, black breadth of moorland, intersected by 
 patches of what was neither land nor water, and last, the 
 sullen sea ; while above our heads a wind, saturated with 
 
VI.] DOMESTIC ECONOMY. 31 
 
 the damps of the Atlantic, went moaning over the land- 
 scape. Yet this was Bessestad, the ancient home of Snorro 
 Sturleson ! 
 
 On dismounting from our horses and entering the 
 house things began to look more cheery ; a dear old lady, 
 to whom we were successively presented by the Rector, re- 
 ceived us, with the air of a princess, ushered us into her 
 best room, made us sit down on the sofa — the place of 
 honor — and assisted by her niece, a pale, lily-like maiden, 
 named after Jarl Hakon's Thora, proceeded to serve us 
 with hot coffee, rusks, and sweetmeats. At first it used to 
 give me a very disagreeable feeling to be waited upon by 
 the woman-kind of the household, and I was always start- 
 ing up, and attempting to take the dishes out of their 
 hands, to their infinite surprise ; but now I have suc- 
 ceeded in learning to accept their ministrations with the 
 same unembarrassed dignity as my neighbors. In the end, 
 indeed, I have rather got to like it, especially when they 
 are as pretty as Miss Thora. To add, moreover, to our 
 content, it ajDpeared that that young lady spoke a little 
 French ; so that we had no longer any need to pay our 
 court by proxy, which many persons besides ourselves 
 have found to be unsatisfactory. Our hostess lives quite 
 alone. Her son, whom I have the pleasure of knowing, is 
 far away, pursuing a career of honor and usefulness at 
 Copenhagen, and it seems quite enough for his mother to 
 know that he is holding his head high among the princes 
 of literature, and the statesmen of Europe, provided only 
 news of his success and advancing reputation shall oc- 
 casionally reach her across the ocean. 
 
 Of the rooms and the interior arrangement of the 
 house, I do not know that I have anything particular to 
 tell you ; they seemed to me like those of a good old- 
 fashioned farm-house, the walls v/ainscoted with deal, and 
 the doors and staircase of the same material. A few 
 
32 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VI. 
 
 prints, a photograph, some book-shelves, one or two little 
 pictures, decorated the parlor, and a neat iron stove, and 
 massive chests of drawers, served to furnish it very com- 
 pletely. But you must not, I fear, take the drawing-room 
 of Bessestad as an average specimen of the comfort of an 
 Icelandic interieur. The greater proportion of the inhabit- 
 ants of the island live much more rudely. The walls of 
 only the more substantial farmsteads are wainscoted with 
 deal, or even partially screened with drift-wood. In most 
 houses the bare blocks of lava, pointed with moss, are left 
 in all their natural ruggedness. Instead of wood, the raf- 
 ters are made of the ribs of whales. The same room but 
 too often serves as the dining, sitting, and sleeping place 
 for the whole family; a hole in the roof is the only chim- 
 ney, and a horse's skull the most luxurious faitteuil into 
 which it is possible for them to induct a stranger. The 
 parquet is that originally laid down by Nature, — the beds 
 are merely boxes filled with feathers or sea-weed, — and by 
 all accounts the nightly packing is pretty close, and very 
 indiscriminate. 
 
 After drinking several cups of coffee, and consuming 
 at least a barrel of rusks, we rose to go, in spite of Miss 
 Thora's intimation that a fresh jorum of coffee was being 
 brewed. The horses were re-saddled ; and with an elo- 
 quent exchange of bows, curtseys, and kindly smiles, we 
 took leave of our courteous entertainers, and sallied forth 
 into the wind and rain. It was a regular race home, single 
 file, the Rector leading ; but as we sped along in silence, 
 amid the unchangeable features of this strange land, I 
 could not help thinking of him whose shrewd observing 
 eye must have rested, six hundred and fifty years ago, on 
 the selfsame crags, and tarns, and distant mountain-tops ; 
 perhaps on the very day he rode out in the pride of his 
 wealth, talent, and political influence, to meet his murder- 
 ers at Reikholt. And mingling with his memory would 
 
VI.] ANCIENT LITER A TURE. l}^ 
 
 rise the pale face of Thora, — not the little lady of the 
 coffee and biscuits we had just left, but that other Thora, 
 so tender and true, who turned back King Olaf's hell- 
 hounds from the hiding-place of the great Jarl of Lade. 
 
 In order that you may understand why the forlorn bar- 
 rack we had just left, and its solitary inmates, should have 
 set me thinking of the men and women " of a thousand 
 summers back," it is necessary I should tell you a little 
 about/ this same Snorro Sturleson, whose memory so 
 haunted me. 
 
 Colonized as Iceland had been, — not, as is generally 
 the case, when a new land is brought into occupation, by 
 the poverty-stricken dregs of a redundant population, nor 
 by a gang of outcasts and ruffians, expelled from the 
 bosom of a society which they contaminated, — but by men 
 who in their own land had been both rich and noble, — 
 with possessions to be taxed, and a spirit too haughty to 
 endure taxation, — already acquainted with whatever of re- 
 finement and learning the age they lived in was capable of 
 supplying, — it is not surprising that we should find its in- 
 habitants, even from the first infancy of the republic, en- 
 dowed with an amount of intellectual energy hardly to be 
 expected in so secluded a community. 
 
 Perhaps it was this very seclusion which stimulated 
 into almost miraculous exuberance the mental powers 
 already innate in the people. Undistracted during several 
 successive centuries by the bloody wars, and still more 
 bloody political convulsions, which for too long a period 
 rendered the sword of the warrior so much more impor- 
 tant to European society than the pen of the scholar, the 
 Icelandic settlers, devoting the long leisure of their winter 
 nights to intellectual occupations, became the first of any 
 European nation to create for themselves a native litera- 
 ture. Indeed, so much more accustomed did they get to 
 use their heads than their hands, that if an Icelander 
 
 3 
 
34 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VI. 
 
 ^ere injured he often avenged himself, not by cutting the 
 throat of his antagonist, but by ridiculing him in some 
 pasquinade, — sometimes, indeed, he did both ; and when 
 the King of Denmark maltreats the crew of an Icelandic 
 vessel shipwrecked on his coast, their indignant country- 
 men send the barbarous monarch word, that by way of 
 reprisal, they intend making as many lampoons on him as 
 there are promontories in his dominions. Almost all the 
 ancient Scandinavian manuscripts are Icelandic ; the ne- 
 gotiations between the Courts of the North were conducted 
 by Icelandic diplomatists ; the earliest topographical sur- 
 vey with which we are acquainted was Icelandic ; the 
 cosmogony of the Odin religion was formulated, and its 
 doctrinal traditions and ritual reduced to a system, by Ice- 
 landic archaeologists ; and the first historical composition 
 ever written by any European in the vernacular, was the 
 product of Icelandic genius. The title of this important 
 work is " The Heimskringla,^'' or ivorld- circle^ and its author 
 was — Snorro Sturleson ! It consists of an account of the 
 reigns of the Norwegian kings from mythic times down 
 to about A. D. 1 150, that is to say, a few years before the 
 death of our own Henry II : but detailed by the old Saga- 
 man with so much art and cleverness as almost to combine 
 the dramatic power of Macaulay with Clarendon's delicate 
 delineation of character, and the charming loquacity of 
 Mr. Pepys. His stirring sea-fights, his tender love-stories, 
 and delightful bits of domestic gossip, are really inimita- 
 ble ; — you actually live with the people he brings upon the 
 stage, as intimately as you do with Falstaff, Percy, or 
 Prince Hal ; and there is something in the bearing of 
 those old heroic figures who form his dramatis perso7tce, so 
 grand and noble, that it is impossible to read the story of 
 
 I So called because Heimskringla (world-circle) is the first word 
 ill the opening sentence of the manuscript which catches the eye. 
 
VI.] ANCIENT LITERATURE. 35 
 
 their earnest stirring lives without a feeling of almost pas- 
 sionate interest — an effect which no tale frozen up in the 
 monkish Latin of the Saxon annalists has ever produced 
 upon me. 
 
 As for Snorro's own lite, it was eventful and tragic 
 enough. Unscrupulous, turbulent, greedy of money, he 
 married two heiresses — the one, however, becoming the 
 colleague^ not the successor of the other. This arrangement 
 naturally led to embarrassment. His wealth created envy, 
 his excessive haughtiness disgusted his sturdy fellow-coun- 
 trymen. He was suspected of desiring to make the repub- 
 lic an appanage of the Norwegian crown, in the hope of 
 himself becoming viceroy ; and at last, on a dark Septem- 
 ber night, of the year 1241, he was murdered in his house 
 at Reikholt by his three sons-in-law. 
 
 The same century which produced the Herodotean work 
 of Sturleson also gave birth to a whole body of miscellane- 
 ous Icelandic literature, — though in Britain and elsewhere 
 bookmaking was entirely confined to the monks, and mere- 
 ly consisted in the compilation of a series of bald annals 
 locked up in bad Latin. It is true, Thomas of Ercildoune 
 was a contemporary of Snorro's ; but he is known to us 
 more as a magiciati than as a man of letters ; whereas 
 histories, memoirs, romances, biographies, poetry, statistics, 
 novels, calendars, specimens of almost every kind of com- 
 position, are to be found even among the meagre relics 
 which have survived the literary decadence that superven- 
 ed on the extinction of the republic. 
 
 It is to these same spirited chroniclers that we are in- 
 debted for the preservation of two of the most remarkable 
 facts in the history of the world : the colonization of 
 Greenland by Europeans in the loth century, and the dis- 
 covery of America by the Icelanders at the commencement 
 of the nth. 
 
36 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES fVI. 
 
 The story is rather curious. 
 
 Shortly after the arrival of the first settlers in Iceland, a 
 mariner of the name of Eric the Red discovers a country 
 away to the west^ which, in consequence of its fruitful 
 appearance, he calls Greenland. In the course of a few 
 years the new land has become so thickly inhabited that it 
 is necessary to erect the district into an episcopal see ; and 
 at last, in 1448, we have a brief of Pope Nicolas "granting 
 to his beloved children of Greenland, in consideration of 
 their having erected many sacred buildings and a splendid 
 cathedral," — a new bishop and a fresh supply of priests. 
 At the commencement, however, of the next century, this 
 colony of Greenland, with its bishops, priests and people, 
 its one hundred and ninety townships, its cathedral, its 
 churches, its monasteries, suddenly fades into oblivion, like 
 the fabric of a dream. The memory of its existence perish- 
 es, and the allusions made to it in the old Scandinavian 
 Sagas gradually come to be considered poetical inventions 
 or pious frauds. At last, after a lapse ' of four hundred 
 years, some Danish missionaries set out to convert the 
 Esquimaux ; and there, far within Davis' Straits, are dis- 
 covered vestiges of the ancient settlement, — remains of 
 houses, paths, walls, churches, tombstones, and inscrip- 
 tions.-^ 
 
 I On one tombstone there was written in Runic. " Vigdis M. D. 
 Hvilir Her; Glwde Gude Sal Hennar." " Vigdessa rests here; God 
 gladden her soul." But the most interesting of these inscriptions is 
 one discovered, in 1824, in an island in Baffin's Bay, in latitude 72° 55^, 
 as it shows how boldly these Northmen must have penetrated into re- 
 gions supposed to have been unvisited by man before the voyages of 
 our modern navigators : — " Erling Sighvatson and Biomo Thordarson, 
 and Eindrid Oddson, on Saturday before Ascension-week, raised these 
 marks and cleared ground, 1135." This date of Ascension-week im- 
 plies that these three men wintered here, which must lead us to im- 
 agine that at that time, seven hundred years ago, the climate was less 
 inclement than it is now. 
 
VI.] THE OLD GREENLAND COLONY. 37 
 
 What could have been the calamity which suddenly 
 annihilated this Christian people, it is impossible to say \ 
 whether they were massacred by some warlike tribe of 
 natives, or swept off to the last man by the terrible pesti- 
 lence of 1349, called " The Black Death," or, — most hor- 
 rible conjecture of all, — beleaguered by vast masses of ice 
 setting down from the Polar Sea along the eastern coast 
 of Greenland, and thus miserably frozen, — we are never 
 likely to know — so utterly did they perish, so mysterious 
 has been their doom. 
 
 On" the other hand, certain traditions, with regard to the 
 discovery of a vast continent by their forefathers away in 
 the south-west, seems never entirely to have died out of the 
 memory of the Icelanders ; and in the month of February, 
 1477, there arrives at Reykjavik, in a barque belonging 
 to the port of Bristol, a certain long visaged, grey-eyed 
 Genoese mariner, who was observed to take an amazing 
 interest in hunting up whatever was known on the subject. 
 Whether Columbus — ^for it was no less a personage than he 
 — really learned anything to confirm him in his noble reso- 
 lutions, is uncertain ; but we have still extant an historical 
 manuscript, written at all events before the year 1395, ^^^^^ 
 is to say, one hundred years prior to Columbus' voyage, 
 which contains a minute account of how a certain person 
 named Lief, while sailing over to Greenland, was driven out 
 of his course by contrary winds, until he found himself off 
 an extensive and unknown coast, which increased in beau- 
 ty and fertility as he descended south, and how, in conse- 
 quence of the representation Lief made on his return, suc- 
 cessive expeditions were undertaken in the same direction. 
 On two occasions their wives seem to have accompanied 
 the adventurers ; of one ship's company the skipper was a 
 lady : while two parties even wintered in the new land, built 
 houses, and prepared to colonize. For some reason how 
 
38 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VI 
 
 ever, the intention was abandoned ; and in process of time 
 tliese early voyages came to be considered as apocryphal 
 as the Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa in the time of 
 Pharaoh Necho. 
 
 It is quite uncertain how low a latitude in America the 
 Northmen ever reached ; but from the description given of 
 the scenery, products, and inhabitants, — from the mildness 
 of the weather, — and from the length of the day on the 
 2ist of December, — it is conjectured they could not have 
 descended much farther than Nev/foundland, Nova Scotia, 
 or, at most, the coast of Massachusetts.-^ 
 
 But to return to more material matters. 
 
 Yesterday — no — the day before — in fact I forget the 
 date of the day — I don't believe it had one — all I know is, 
 I have not been in bed since, — we dined at the Governor's ; 
 — though dinner is too modest a term to apply to the enter- 
 tainment. 
 
 The invitation was for four o'clock, and at half-past 
 three we pulled ashore in the gig ; I, innocent that I was, 
 in a well-fitting white waistcoat. 
 
 The Government House, like all the others, is built of 
 wood, on the top of a hillock ; the only accession of dignity 
 it can boast being a little bit of mangy kitchen-garden that 
 hangs down in front to the road, like a soiled apron. There 
 was no lock, handle, bell, or knocker to the door, but im- 
 mediately on our approach, a servant presented himself, and 
 ushered us in to the room where Count Trampe was wait- 
 ing to welcome us. After having been presented to his 
 wife, we proceeded to shake hands with the other guests, 
 most of whom I already knew ; and I was glad to find that 
 
 I There is a certain piece of rock on the Taunton river, in Massa- 
 chusetts, called the Deighton Stone, on which are to be seen rude con- 
 figurations, for a long time supposed to be a Runic inscription executed 
 by these Scandinavian voyagers ; but there can be now no longer any 
 doubt of this inscription, such as it is, being of Indian execution. 
 
VI.] AN ICELANDIC DINNER, 39 
 
 at all events in Iceland, people do not consider it necessary 
 to pass the ten minutes which precede the announcement of 
 dinner, as if they had assembled to assist at the opening of 
 their entertainer's will, instead of his oysters. The com- 
 pany consisted of the chief dignitaries of the island, includ- 
 ing the Bishop, the Chief Justice, etc., etc., some of them 
 in uniform, and all with holiday faces. As soon as the 
 door was opened. Count Trampe tucked me under his arm 
 — two other gentlemen did the same to my two companions 
 —and we streamed into the dining-room. The table was 
 very prettily arranged with flowers, plate, and a forest of 
 glasses. Fitzgerald and I were placed on either side of 
 our host, the other guests, in due order, beyond. On my 
 left sat the rector, and opposite, next to Fitz, the chief 
 physician of the island. Then began a series of transac- 
 tions of which I have no distinct recollection ; in fact, the 
 events of the next five hours recur to me in as great disarray 
 as reappear the vestiges of a country that has been disfig- 
 ured by some deluge. If I give you anything like a con- 
 nected account of what passed, you must thank Sigurdr's 
 more solid temperament ; for the Doctor looked quite 
 foolish when I asked him — tried to feel my pulse — could 
 not find it — and then wrote the following prescription, 
 which I believe to be nothing more than an invoice of 
 the number of bottles he himself disposed of.-^ 
 
 I gather, then, from evidence — internal and otherwise — 
 that the dinner was excellent, and that we were helped 
 
 Copy of Dr. F's prescription : 
 
 
 B vin : claret : 
 
 iii btls. 
 
 vin : champ : 
 
 iv btls. 
 
 vin : sherr ; 
 
 K btl. 
 
 vin : Rheni : 
 
 ii btls. 
 
 aqua vitae 
 
 viii gls. 
 
 trigint \ poc : aegrot : 
 
 : cap : quotjd : 
 
 Reik : die Martis, JunLi 27. 
 
 C. E. F 
 
40 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VI. 
 
 in Benjamite proportions ; but as before the soup was fin- 
 ished I was already hard at work hob-nobbing with my two 
 neighbors, it is not to be expected I should remember the 
 bill of fare. 
 
 With the peculiar manners used in Scandinavian skoal- 
 drinking I was already well acquainted. In the nice con- 
 duct of a wine glass I knew that I excelled, and having an 
 hereditary horror of heel-taps, I prepared with a firm heart 
 to respond to the friendly provocations of my host. I only 
 wish you could have seen how his kind face beamed with 
 approval when I chinked my first bumper against his, and 
 having emptied it at a draught, turned it towards him bot- 
 tom upwards, with the orthodox twist. Soon however, 
 things began to look more serious even than I had expected. 
 I knew well that to refuse a toast, or to half empty your 
 glass, was considered churlish. I had come determined to 
 accept my host's hospitality as cordially as it was offered. I 
 was willing, at a pinch, to payer de ma persojine ; should he 
 not be content with seeing me <2/his table, I was ready, if 
 need were, to remain under it ! but at the rate we were then 
 going it seemed probable this consummation would take 
 place before the second course : so, after having exchanged 
 a dozen rounds of sherry and champagne with my two 
 neighbors, I pretended not to observe that my glass had 
 been refilled ; and like the sea-captain, who, slipping from 
 between his two opponents, left them to blaze away at 
 each other the long night through, — withdrew from the 
 combat. But it would not do ; with untasted bumpers, and 
 dejected faces, they politely waited until I should give the 
 signal for a renewal of /^^^/ilities, as they well deserved to 
 be called. Then there came over me a horrid, wicked 
 feeling. What if I should endeavor to floor the Governor 
 and so literally turn the tables on him ! It is true I had 
 lived for five-and-twenty years without touching wine, — ■ 
 but was not I my great-grandfather's great-grandson, and 
 
VI.] AN ICELANDIC DINNER. 
 
 41 
 
 an Irish peer to boot ? Were there not traditions, too, on 
 the other side of the house, of casks of claret brought up 
 into the dining-room, the door locked, and the key thrown 
 out of the window ? With such antecedents to sustain me 
 I ought to be able to hold my own against the staunchest 
 toper in Iceland ! So with a devil glittering in my left eye 
 I winked defiance right and left, and away we went at it 
 again for another five-and-forty minutes. At last their fire 
 slackened : I had partially quelled both the Governor and 
 the Rector, and still survived. It is true I did not feel 
 comfortable ; but it was in the neighborhood of my v/aist- 
 coat, not my head, I suffered. " I am not well but I will 
 not out," I soliloquized, with Lepidus^ — '''^oq txot ro -rc/xJv," 
 I would have added, had I dared. Still the neck of 
 the banquet was broken — Fitzgerald's chair was not yet 
 empty, — could we hold out perhaps a quarter of an hour 
 longer, our reputation was established ; guess then my hor- 
 ror, when the Icelandic Doctor, shouting his favorite dogma 
 by way of battle cry, " Si trigintis guttis, morbum cur- 
 are velis, erras," gave the signal for an unexpected onslaught 
 and the twenty guests poured down on me in succession. I 
 really thought I should run away from the house ; but 
 the true family blood, I suppose, began to show itself, and 
 v/ith a calmness almost frightful, I received them one by 
 one. 
 
 After this began the public toasts. 
 
 Although up to this time I had kept a certain portion 
 of my wits about me, the subsequent hours of the enter- 
 tainment became henceforth developed in a dreamy mystery 
 I can perfectly recall the look of the sheaf of glasses that 
 stood before me, six in number ; I could draw the pattern 
 of each ; I remember feeling a lazy wonder they should 
 always be full, though I did nothing but empty them, — and 
 
 I Antony and Cleopatra, 
 
42 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VI. 
 
 at last solved the phenomenon by concluding I had be- 
 come a kind of Danaid whose punishment, not whose sen- 
 tence, had been reversed ; then suddenly I felt as if I were 
 disembodied, — a distant spectator of my own performances 
 and of the feast at which my person remained seated. The 
 voices of my host, of the Rector, of the Chief Justice, be- 
 came thin and low, as though they reached me through a 
 whispering tube ; and when I rose to speak, it was to an 
 audience in another sphere, and in a language of another 
 state of being : yet, however unintelligible to myself, I must 
 have been in some sort understood, for at the end of each 
 sentence, cheers, faint as the roar of waters on a far-off 
 strand, floated towards me ; and if I am to believe a report 
 of the proceedings subsequently shown us, I must have be- 
 come polyglot in my cups. According to that report it 
 seems the governor threw off (I wonder he did not do 
 something else), with the Queen's health in French : to 
 which I responded in the same language. Then the rector 
 in English, proposed my health,— under the circumstances 
 a cruel mockery, — but to which, ill as I was, I responded 
 very gallantly by drinking to the beaux yeux of the Count- 
 ess. Then somebody else drank success to Great Britain 
 and I see it was followed by really a very learned discourse 
 by Lord D., in honor of the ancient Icelanders ; during 
 which he alluded to their discovery of America, and Col- 
 umbus' visit. Then came a couple of speeches in Iceland- 
 ic, after which the Bishop, in a magnificent Latin oration 
 of some twenty minutes, a second time, proposes my health 
 to which, utterly at my wits' end, I had the audacity to 
 reply in the same language. As it is fit so great an effort 
 of oratory should not perish, I send you some of its choic- 
 est specimens : — 
 
 " Viri illustres," I began, " insolitus ut sum ad publi- 
 cum loquendum, ego propero respondere ad complimentum 
 quod recte reverendus prelaticus mihi fecit, in proponendo 
 
V f J SPEECHIFYING IN LA TIN. 
 
 43 
 
 meam salutem : et supplico vos credere quod multum grat- 
 ificatus et flattificatus sum honore tarn distincto. 
 
 "Bibere, viri illustres, res est, quae in omnibus terris, 
 
 * domum venit ad hominum negotia et pectora : ^ (i) re- 
 
 * quirit liaustum longum, haustum fortem, et haustum om- 
 
 * nes simul : ' (2) ut canit Poeta, ' unum tactum Naturae to- 
 ' turn orben facit consanguineum,' (3) et hominis Natura 
 est — bibere (4). 
 
 " Viri illustres, alterum est sentimentum equaliter univer- 
 sale : terra communis super quam septentrionales et meri- 
 dionales, eadem enthusiasma convenire possunt : est ne- 
 cesse quod id nominarem ? Ad pulchrum sexum devotio ! 
 
 " Amor regit palatium, castra, lucum : (5) Dubito sub 
 quo capite vestram jucundam civitalem numerare debeam. 
 Palatium ? non Regem ! Castra ? non milites ! lucum ? 
 non ullam arborem habetis ! Tamen Cupido vos dominat 
 baud aliter quam alios, — et virginum Islandarum pulchri- 
 tudo, per omnes regiones cognita est. 
 
 " Bibamus salutem earum, et confusionem ad omnes 
 bacularios : speramus quod eas caroe et benedictae creaturag 
 invenient tot maritos quot velint, — quod geminos quotta- 
 nis habeant, et quod earum fili^e, maternum exemplum se- 
 quentes, gentem Islandicam perpetuent in saecula s^cu- 
 lorum." 
 
 The last words mechanically rolled out, in the same 
 
 1 As the happiness of these quotations seemed to produce a very 
 pleasing effect on my auditors, I subjoin a translation of them for Ihe 
 benefit of the unlearned : — 
 
 1. "Comes home to men's business and bosoms." — Paterfainili.is^ 
 Times. 
 
 2. " A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together." — Nelson ai 
 the Nile. 
 
 3. " One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." — Jeremy 
 Bentham. 
 
 4. Apothegm by the late Lord Mountcoffeehouse. 
 
 <^. " Love rules the court, the camp, the grove." — Venerable Bede. 
 
44 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VI. 
 
 ** ore rotundo " with which the poor old Dean of Christ- 
 church used to finish his Gloria, etc., in the Cathedral. 
 
 Then followed more speeches, — a great chinking of 
 glasses, — a Babel of conversation, — a kind of dance round 
 the table, while we successively gave each alternate hand, 
 as in the last figure of the Lancers, — a hearty embrace from 
 the Governor, — and finally, — silence, daylight, and fresh air, 
 as we stumbled forth into the street. 
 
 Now what was to be done ? To go to bed was impossi- 
 ble. It was eleven o'clock by our watches, and as bright 
 as noon. Fitz said it was twenty-two o'clock ; but by this 
 time he had reached that point of enlargement of the mind, 
 and development of the visual organs, which is expressed 
 by the term " seeing double," — though he now pretends he 
 was only reckoning time in the Venetian manner. We were 
 in the position of three fast young men about Reykjavik, 
 determined to make a night of it, but without the where- 
 withal. There were neither knockers to steal, nor watch- 
 men to bonnet. At last we remembered that the apotheca- 
 ry's wife had a conversazione, to which she had kindly in- 
 vited us ; and accordingly, off we went to her house. Here 
 we found a number of French officers, a piano, and a young 
 lady j in consequence of which the drum soon became a 
 ball. Finally, it was proposed we should dance a reel ; the 
 second lieutenant of the ''^Artemise'' had once seen one when 
 his ship was riding out a gale in the Clyde ; — the little lady 
 had frequently studied a picture of the Highland fling on 
 the outside of a copy of Scotch music ; — I could dance a 
 jig — the set was complete, all we wanted was music. Luck- 
 ily the lady of the house knew the song of " Annie Laurie,'* 
 ' — played fast it made an excellent reel tune. As you may 
 suppose, all succeeded admirably ; we nearly died of laugh- 
 ing, and I only wish Lord Breadalbane had been by to see. 
 
 At one in the morning, our danseuse retiring to rest, the 
 ball necessarily terminated ; but the Governor's dinner stil) 
 
VI.] WINGED RABBITS. 
 
 45 
 
 forbidding bed, we determined on a sail in the cutter to 
 some islands about three-quarters of a mile out to sea ; and 
 I do not think I shall ever forget the delicious sensation of 
 lying down lazily in the stern-sheets, and listening to the 
 rippling of the water against the bows of the boat, as she 
 glided away towards them. The dreamy, misty landscape, 
 — each headland silently sleeping in the unearthly light, — 
 Sncefell, from whose far-off peaks the midnight sun, though 
 lost to us, had never faded, — the Plutonic crags that stood 
 around, so gaunt and weird, — the quaint fresh life I had been 
 lately leading, — all combined to promise such an existence 
 of novelty and excitement in that strange Arctic region on 
 the threshold of which we were now pausing, that I could 
 not sufficiently congratulate myself on our good fortune. 
 Soon, however, the grating of our keel upon the strand dis- 
 turbed my reflections, and by the time I had unaccounta- 
 bly stepped up to my knees in the water, I was thoroughly 
 awake, and in a condition to explore the island. It seemed 
 to be about three-quarters of a mile long, not very broad, 
 and a complete rabbit-warren ; in fact, I could not walk a 
 dozen yards without tripping up in the numerous burrows 
 by which the ground was honeycombed : at last, on turning 
 a corner, we suddenly came on a dozen rabbits, gravel}'' sit- 
 ting at the mouths of their holes. They were quite white, 
 without ears, and with scarlet noses. I made several des- 
 perate attempts to catch some of these singular animals, 
 but though one or two allowed me to come pretty near, just 
 as I thought my prize was secure, in some unaccountable 
 manner — it made unto itself wings, and literally flew away ! 
 Moreover, if my eyesight did not share the peculiar devel- 
 opment which affected that of the Doctor's, I should say 
 that these rabbits flew in paiis. Red-nosed, winged rab- 
 bits ! I had never heard or read of the species ; and I nat- 
 urally grew enthusiastic in the chase, hoping to bring home 
 a choice specimen to astonish our English naturalists. With 
 
46 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VI. 
 
 some difficulty we managed to catch one or two, which had 
 run into their holes instead of flying away. They bit and 
 scratched like tiger-cats, and screamed like parrots ; indeed, 
 on a nearer inspection, I am obliged to confess that they 
 assumed the appearance of birds,^ which may perhaps ac- 
 count for their powers of flight. A slight confusion still 
 remains in my mind as to the real nature of the creatures. 
 At about nine o'clock we returned to breakfast ; and the 
 rest of the day was spent in taking leave of our friends, and 
 organizing the baggage-train, which was to start at mid- 
 night, under the command of the cook. The cavalcade 
 consisted of eighteen horses, but of these only one-half 
 were laden, two animals being told off to each burthen, 
 which is shifted from the back of the one to that of the oth- 
 er every four hours. The pack-saddles were rude, but ser- 
 viceable articles, with hooks on either side, on which a pair 
 of oblong little chests were slung ; strips of turf being stuf- 
 fed beneath to prevent the creature's back being galled. 
 Such of our goods as could not be conveniently stowed 
 away in the chests were fitted on to the top, in whatever 
 manner their size and weight admitted, each pony carrying 
 about 140 lbs. The photographic apparatus caused us the 
 greatest trouble, and had to be distributed between two 
 beasts. As was to be expected, the guides who assisted 
 us packed the nitrate of silver bath upside down ; an out- 
 rage the nature of which you cannot appreciate. At last 
 everything was pretty well arranged, — guns, powder, shot, 
 tea-kettles, rice, tents, beds, portable soups, etc., all stowed 
 away — when the desponding Wilson came to me, his chin 
 sweeping the ground, to say — that he very much feared the 
 cook would die of the ride, — that he had never been on 
 horseback in his life, — that as an experiment he had hired 
 
 1 The Puffin {Alca arctica)lxi Icelandic, Soe-papagoie ; In Scotland, 
 Priest ; and in Cornwall, Pope. 
 
VT.] WINGED RABBITS. 47 
 
 a pony that very morning at his own charges, — had been 
 run away with, but having been caught and brought home 
 by a honest Icelander, was -now lying down — that position 
 being the one he found most convenient. 
 
 As the first day's journey was two-and-thirty miles, and 
 would probably necessitate his being twelve or thirteen 
 hours in the saddle, I began to be really alarmed for my 
 poor chef; but finding on inquiry that these gloomy prog- 
 nostics were entirely voluntary on the part of Mr. Wilson, 
 that the ofiicer in question was full of zeal, and only too 
 anxious to add horsemanship to his other accomplishments, 
 I did not interfere. As for Wilson himself, it is not a mar- 
 vel if he should see things a little askew ; for some unac- 
 countable reason, he chose to sleep last night in the open 
 air, on the top of a hen coop, and naturally awoke this 
 morning with a crick in his neck, and his face so immov- 
 ably fixed over his left shoulder, that the efforts of all the 
 ship's company have not been able to twist it back ; with 
 the help of a tackle, however, I think we shall eventually 
 brace it square again. 
 
 At two v/e went to lunch with the Rector. The enter- 
 tainment bore a strong family likeness to our last night's 
 dinner ; but as I wanted afterwards to exhibit my magic 
 lantern to his little daughter Raghnilder, and a select par- 
 ty of her young friends, we contrived to elude doing full 
 justice to it. During the remainder of the evening, like 
 Job's children, we went about feasting from house to house, 
 taking leave of friends who could not have been kinder 
 had they known us all our lives, and interchanging little 
 gifts and souvenirs. With the Governor I have left a print 
 from the Princess Royal's drawing of the dead soldier in 
 the Crimea. From the Rector of the cathedral church I 
 have received some very curious books — almost the first 
 printed in the island ; I have been very anxious to obtain 
 some specimens of ancient Icelandic manuscripts, but the 
 
48 
 
 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
 
 [VI. 
 
 island has long since been ransacked of its literary treas- 
 ures ; and to the kindness of the French consul I am in- 
 debted for a charming little white fox, the drollest and 
 prettiest little beast I ever saw. 
 
 Having dined on board the " Arfemise,''^ we adjourned 
 at eleven o'clock to the beach to witness the departure of 
 the baggage. The ponies were all drawn up in one long 
 file, the head of each being tied to the tail of the one im- 
 mediately before him. Additional articles were stowed 
 away here and there among the boxes. The last instructions 
 were given by Sigurdr to the guides, and everything was 
 declared ready for a start. 
 
 The jovial Wilson rides with us to-morrow. Unless we 
 get his head round during the night, he will have to sit 
 facing his horse's tail, in order to see before him. 
 
 We do not seem to run any danger of falling short of 
 provisions, as by all accounts there are birds enough in the 
 interior of the country to feed an Israelitish emigration. 
 
LETTER VII. 
 
 KISSES WILSON ON HORSEBACK A LAVA PLATEAU THING- 
 VALLA ALMANNAGIA RABNAGIA OUR TENT THE 
 
 SHIVERED PLAIN WITCH-DROWNING A PARLIAMENTARY 
 
 DEBATE, A. D. lOOO THANGBRAND THE MISSIONARY ^A 
 
 GERMAN GNAT-CATCHER THE MYSTICAL MOUNTAINS 
 
 SIR OLAF — HECKLA SKAPTA JOKUL THE FIRE DELUGE 
 
 OF 1783 WE REACH THE GEYSIR STROKR FITZ'S BONNE 
 
 FORTUNE MORE KISSES AN ERUPTION — PRINCE NAPO- 
 LEON — RETURN — TRADE — POPULATION — A MUTINY THE 
 
 REINE HORTENSE THE SEVEN DUTCHMEN A BALL LOW 
 
 DRESSES NORTHWARD HO ! 
 
 Reykjavik, July 7, 1S56. 
 
 At last I have seen the famous Geysirs, of which every 
 one has heard so much ; but I have also seen Thingvalla, 
 of which no one has heard anything. The Geysirs are cer- 
 tainly wonderful marvels of nature, but more wonderful, 
 more marvellous is Thingvalla ; and if the one repay you 
 for crossing the Spanish Sea, it would be worth while to 
 go round the world to reach the other. 
 
 Of the boiling fountains I think I can give you a good 
 idea, but whether I can contrive to draw for you anything 
 like a comprehensible picture of the shape and nature of 
 the Almannagja, the Hrafnagja, and the lava vale, called 
 Thingvalla, that lies between them, I am doubtful. Before 
 coming to Iceland I had read every account that had been 
 written of Thingvalla by any former traveller, aid when I 
 saw it, it appeared to me a place of which I had never 
 heard ; so I suppose I shall come to grief in as melancholy 
 
 4 '' 
 
5 o LE ITERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. \yi I 
 
 a manner as my predecessors, whose ineffectual pages 
 whiten tlie entrance to tlie valley they hav^e failed to 
 describe. 
 
 Having superintended — as I thinly I mentioned to you 
 in my last letter— the midnight departure of the cook, 
 guides, and luggage, we returned on board for a good 
 night's rest, which we all needed. The start was settled 
 for the next morning at eleven o'clock, and you may sup- 
 pose we were not sorry to find, on waking, the bright joy- 
 ous sunshine pouring down through the cabin skylight, and 
 illuminating the white-robed, well-furnished breakfast-table 
 with more than usual splendor. At the appointed hour 
 we rowed ashore to where our eight ponies — two being as- 
 signed to each of us, to be ridden alternately — were stand- 
 ing ready bridled and saddled, at the house of one of our 
 kindest friends. Of course, though but just risen from 
 breakfast, the inevitable invitation to eat and drink 
 awaited us ; and another half-hour was spent in sipping 
 cups of coffee poured out for us with much laughter by 
 our hostess and her pretty daughter. At last, the neces- 
 sary libations accomplished, we rose to go. Turning round 
 to Fitz, I whispered, how I had always understood it was 
 the proper thing in Iceland for travellers departing on a 
 journey to kiss the ladies who had been good enough to 
 entertain them, — little imagining he would take me at my 
 word. Guess then my horror, wdien I suddenly saw him, 
 with an intrepidity I envied but dared not imitate, first em- 
 brace the mamma, by way of prelude, and then proceed, 
 in the most natural manner possible, to make the same 
 tender advances to the daughter. I confess I remained 
 dumb with consternation j the room swam round before 
 me ; I expected the next minute we should be packed 
 neck and crop into the street, and that the young lady 
 would have gone off into hysterics. It turned out, how- 
 ever, that such was the very last thing she was thinking of 
 
51 
 
 VI I J WE START. 
 
 doing. With a simple frankness that became her more 
 than all the boarding-school graces in the world, her eyes 
 dancing with mischief and good humor, she met him half 
 way, and pouting out two rosy lips, gave him as hearty a 
 kiss as it might ever be the good fortune of one of us he- 
 creatures to receive. From that moment I determined to 
 conform for the future to the customs of the inhabitants. 
 
 Fresh from favors such as these, it was not surprising 
 we should start in the highest spirits. With a courtesy 
 peculiar to Iceland, Dr. Hjaltelin, the most jovial of doc- 
 tors, — and another gentleman, insisted on conveying us the 
 first dozen miles of our journey ; and as we clattered away 
 
52 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 
 
 through the wooden streets, I think a merrier party never 
 set out from Reykjavik. In front scampered the three 
 spare ponies, without bridles, saddles, or any sense of 
 moral responsibility, flinging up their heels, biting and 
 neighing like mad things ; then came Sigurdr, now become 
 our chief, surrounded by the rest of the cavalcade ; and 
 finally, at a little distance, plunged in profound mel- 
 ancholy, rode Wilson. Never shall I forget his appear- 
 ance. During the night his head had come partially 
 straight, but by way of precaution, I suppose, he had con- 
 ceived the idea of burying it down to the chin in a huge 
 seal-skin helmet I had given him against the inclemencies 
 of the Polar Sea. As on this occasion the thermometer 
 was at Si'*, and a coup-de-sokil was the chief thing to be 
 feared, a ton of fur round his skull was scarcely necessary. 
 Seamen's trousers, a bright scarlet jersey, and jack-boots 
 fringed with cat-skin, completed his costume ; and as he 
 proceeded along in his usual state of chronic consternation, 
 with my rifle slung at his back and a couple of telescopes 
 over his shoulder, he looked the image of Robinson Cru- 
 soe, fresh from having seen the foot-print. 
 
 A couple of hours' ride across the lava plain we had 
 previously traversed brought us to a river, where our 
 Reykjavik friends, after showing us a salmon weir, finally 
 took their leave, with many kind wishes for our prosperity. 
 On looking through the clear water that hissed and bubbled 
 through the wooden sluice, the Doctor had caught sight of 
 an apparently dead salmon, jammed up against its wooden 
 bars ; but on pulling him out, he proved to be still breath- 
 ing, though his tail was immovably twisted into his mouth, 
 A consultation taking place, the Doctors both agreed that 
 it was a case of pleurosthotonos, brought on by mechani- 
 cal injury to the spine (we had just been talking of Pal- 
 mer's trial), and that he was perfectly fit for food. In ac- 
 cordance with this verdict, he was knocked on the head. 
 
VII.J SADNESS AND JOLLITY. 53 
 
 and slung at Wilson's saddle-bow. Left to ourselves, we 
 now pushed on as rapidly as we could, though the track 
 across the lava was so uneven, that every moment I expect- 
 ed Snorro (for thus have I christened my pony) would be 
 on his nose. In another hour we were among the hills. 
 The scenery of this part of the journey was not very beau- 
 tiful, the mountains not being remarkable either for their 
 size or shape, but here and there we came upon pretty 
 bits, not unlike some of the barren parts of Scotland, with 
 quiet blue lakes sleeping in the solitude. 
 
 After wandering along for some time in a broad open 
 valley, that gradually narrowed to a glen, we reached a 
 grassy patch. As it was past three o'clock, Sigurdr pro- 
 posed a halt. 
 
 Unbridling and unsaddling our steeds, we turned them 
 loose iipon the pasture, and sat ourselves down on a sunny 
 knoll to lunch. For the first time since landing in Iceland 
 I felt hungry ; as, for the first time, four successive hours 
 had elapsed without our having been compelled to take a 
 snack. The appetites of the ponies seemed equally good, 
 though probably with them hunger was no such novelty. 
 Wilson looked sad. He confided to me privately that he 
 feared his trousers would not last such jolting many days ; 
 but his dolefulness, like a bit of minor in a sparkling mel- 
 ody, only made our jollity more radiant. In about an hour 
 Sigurdr gave the signal for a start ; and having caught, 
 saddled, and bridled three unridden ponies, we drove 
 Snorro and his companions to the front, and proceeded on 
 our way rejoicing. After an hour's gradual ascent through 
 a picturesque ravine, we emerged upon an immense deso- 
 late plateau of lava, that stretched away for miles and 
 miles like a great stony sea. A more barren desert you 
 cannot conceive. Innumerable boulders, relics of the 
 glacial period, encumbered the track. We could only go 
 at a foot-pace. Not a blade of grass, not a strip of green, 
 
54 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [^I I . 
 
 enlivened the prospect, and the only sound we heard was 
 the croak of the curlew and the wail of the plover. Hour 
 after hour we plodded on, but the grey waste seemed in- 
 terminable, boundless ; and the only consolation Sigurdr 
 v;ould vouchsafe was, that our journey's end lay on this 
 side of some purple-mountains that peeped like the tents 
 of a demon leaguer above the stony horizon. 
 
 As it was already eight o'clock, and we had been told 
 the entire distance from Reykjavik to Thingvalla was only 
 five-and-thirty miles, I could not comprehend how so great 
 a space should still separate us from our destination. 
 Concluding more time had been lost in shooting, lunching, 
 etc., by the way than we had supposed, I put my pony into 
 a canter, and determined to make short work of the dozen 
 miles which seemed still to lie between us and the hills, 
 on this side of which I understood from Sigurdr our en- 
 campment for the night was to be pitched. 
 
 Judge, then, of my astonishment when, a few minutes 
 afterwards, I was arrested in full career by a tremendous 
 precipice, or rather chasm, which suddenly gaped beneath 
 my feet, and completely separated the barren plateau we 
 had been so painfully traversing from a lovely, gay, sunlit 
 flat, ten miles broad, that lay — sunk at a level lower by a 
 hundred feet — between us and the opposite mountains. I 
 was never so completely taken by surprise ; Sigurdr's pur- 
 posely vague description of our halting-place was account- 
 ed for. 
 
 We had reached the famous Almanna Gja. Like a 
 black rampart in the distance, the corresponding chasir of 
 the Hrafna Gja cut across the lower slope of the distant 
 hills, and between them now slept in beauty and sunshine 
 the broad verdant ^ plain of Thingvalla. 
 
 Ages ago, — who shall say how long? — some vast com- 
 
 I The plain of Thingvalla is in a great measure clothed with birch 
 brushwood. 
 
VII.J 
 
 ALMANNA GJA. 
 
 57 
 
 motion shook the foundations of the island, and bubbling 
 up from sources far away amid the inland hills, a fiery del- 
 uge must have rushed down between their ridges, until, 
 escaping from the narrower gorges, it found space to 
 spread itself into one-broad sheet of molten stone over an 
 entire district of country, reducing its varied surface to 
 one vast blackened level. 
 
 One of two things then occurred : either the vitrified 
 mass contracting as it cooled, — the centre area of fifty 
 square miles burst asunder at either side from the adjoin- 
 ing plateau, and sinking down to its present level, left the 
 two parallel Gjas, or chasms, which form its lateral bound- 
 aries, to mark the limits of the disruption; or else, while 
 the pith or marrow of the lava was still in a fluid state, its 
 upper surface became solid, and formed a roof beneath 
 which the molten stream flowed on to lower levels, leaving 
 a vast cavern into which the upper crust subsequently 
 plumjied down.^ 
 
 The enclosed section will perhaps help you a little to 
 comprehend what I am afraid my description will have 
 failed to bring before you. 
 
 5 3 
 
 I Gjas. 2 Lava deluge. 
 
 4 Thingvalla sunk to a lower level. 
 
 3 Original surface. 
 
 5 Astonished traveller. 
 
 I I feel it is very presumptuous in me to hazard a conjecture on a 
 subject with which my want of geological knowledge renders me quite 
 incompetent to deal ; but however incorrect either of the above sup- 
 positions may be justly considered by the philosophers, they will per- 
 
58 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VII, 
 
 1. Are the two chasms called respectively Almanna 
 Gja, ^ or Main Gja, and Hrafna Gja, or Raven's Gja. In 
 the act of disruption the sinking mass fell in, as it were, 
 upon itself, so that one side of the Gja slopes a good deal 
 back as it ascends ; the other side is perfectly perpendicu- 
 lar, and at the spot I saw it upwards of one hundred feet 
 high. In the lapse of years the bottom of the Almanna 
 Gja has become gradually filled up to an even surface, 
 covered with the most beautiful turf, except where a river, 
 leaping from the higher plateau over the precipice, has 
 chosen it for a bed. You must not suppose, however, that 
 the disruption and land-slip of Thingvalla took place quite 
 in the spick and span manner the section might lead you 
 to imagine ; in some places the rock has split asunder very 
 unevenly, and the Hrafna Gja is altogether a very untidy 
 rent, the sides having fallen in in many places, and almost 
 filled up the ravine with ruins. On the other hand, in the 
 Almanna Gja, you can easily distinguish on the one face 
 marks and formations exactly corresponding, though at a 
 different level, with those on the face opposite, so cleanly 
 were they separated. 
 
 2. Is the sea of lava now lying on the top of the origi- 
 nal surface. Its depth I had no means of ascertaining. 
 
 3. Is the level of the surface first formed when the lava 
 was vStill hot. 
 
 4. Is the plain of Thingvalla, eight miles broad, its sur- 
 face shattered into a network of innumerable crevices and 
 fissures fifty or sixty feet deep, and each wide enough to 
 
 haps serve to convey to the unlearned reader, for whose amusement 
 (not instruction) these letters are intended, the impression conveyed 
 to my mind by what I saw, and so help out the picture I am trying to 
 fill in for him. 
 
 I Almanna may be translated main ; it means literally all men's; 
 when applied to a road, it would mean the road along which all the 
 world travel. 
 
VII.] 
 
 PLAIN OF THING VALLA. 
 
 59 
 
 have swallo/ved the entire company of Korah. At the 
 foot of the plain lies a vast lake, into which, indeed, it 
 may be said to slope, with a gradual inclination from the 
 
 I Plain of Thingvalla 
 3 Lava plateau. 
 
 5 Rabna Gja. 
 
 2 Lake, 
 
 4 Almanna Gja. 
 
 north, the imprisoned waters having burst up through the 
 lava strata, as it subsided beneath themo Gazing down 
 through their emerald depths, you can still follow the pat- 
 tern traced on the surface of the bottom, by cracks and 
 chasms similar to those into which the dry portion of 
 Thingvalla has been shivered. 
 
 The accompanying ground plan will, I trust, complete 
 what is wanting to fill up the picture I so long to conjure 
 up before the mind's eye. It is the last card I have to 
 play, and, if unsuccessful, T must give up the task in des- 
 pair. 
 
6o LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VII. 
 
 But to return to where I left myself, on the edge of the 
 cliff, gazing down with astonished eyes over the panorama 
 of land and water embedded at my feet. I could scarcely 
 speak for pleasure and surprise ; Fitz was equally taken 
 aback, and as for Wilson, he looked as if he thought we 
 had arrived at the end of the world. After having allowed 
 us sufficient time to admire the prospect Sigurdr turned to 
 the left, along the edge of the precipice, until we reached 
 a narrow pathway accidentally formed down a longitudinal 
 niche in the splintered face of the cliff, which led across 
 the bottom, and up the opposite side of the Gja, into the 
 plain of Thingvalla. By rights our tents ought to have 
 arrived before us, but when we reached the little glebe 
 where we expected to find them pitched, no signs of ser- 
 vants, guides, or horses were to be seen. 
 
 As we had not overtaken them ourselves, their non-ap- 
 pearance was inexplicable. Wilson suggested that, the 
 cook having died on the road, the rest of the party must 
 have turned aside to bury him ; and that we had passed 
 unperceived during the interesting ceremony. Be the 
 cause what it might, the result was not agreeable. We 
 were very tired, very hungry, and it had just begun to 
 rain. 
 
 It is true there was a clergyman's house and a church, 
 both built of stones covered with turf sods, close by j at 
 the one, perhaps, we could get milk, and in the other we 
 could sleep, as our betters — including Madame Pfeiffer — 
 had done before us ; but its inside looked so dark, and 
 damp, and cold, and charn el-like, that one really doubted 
 wdiether lying in the churchyard would not be snugger. 
 You may guess, then, how great was my relief when our 
 belated baggage-train was descried against the sky-line, as 
 it slowly wended its way along the purple edge of the 
 precipice towards the staircase by which we had already 
 descended. 
 
VII. J A PICNIC. 61 
 
 Half an hour afterwards the little plot of grass select- 
 ed for the site of our encampment was covered over with 
 poles, boxes, cauldrons, tea-kettles, and all the parapher- 
 nalia of a gipsy settlement. Wilson's Kaffir experience 
 came at once into play, and under his solemn but effective 
 superintendence, in less than twenty minutes the horn- 
 headed tent rose, dry and taut upon the sward. Having 
 carpeted the floor with oil-skin rugs, and arranged our 
 three beds with their clean crisp sheets, blankets, and cov- 
 erlets complete, at the back, he proceeded to lay out the 
 dinner-table at the tent door with as much decorum as if 
 we were expecting the Archbishop of Canterbury. All 
 this time the cook, who looked a little pale, and moved, I 
 observed with difficulty, was mysteriously closeted with a 
 spirit-lamp inside a diminutive tent of his own, through 
 the door of which the most delicious whiffs occasionally 
 permeated. Olaf and his companions had driven off the 
 horses to their pastures ; and Sigurdr and I were deep in 
 a game of chess. Luckily, the shower, which threatened 
 us a moment, had blown over. Though now almost nine 
 o'clock p. M., it was as bright as mid-day ; the sky burned 
 like a dome of gold, and silence and deep peace brooded 
 over the fair grass-robed plain, that once had been so fear- 
 fully convulsed. 
 
 You may be quite sure our dinner went off merrily ; 
 the tetanus-afflicted salmon proved excellent, the plover 
 and ptarmigan were done to a turn, the mulligatawny be- 
 yond all praise ; but alas ! I regret to add, that he — the 
 artist, by whose skill these triumphs had been achieved — 
 his task accomplished, — no longer sustained by the facti 
 tious energy resulting from his professional enthusiasm,— 
 at last succumbed, and, retiring to the recesses of his tent, 
 like Psyche in the " Princess," lay down, " and neither 
 spoke nor stirred." 
 
 After another game or two of chess, a pleasant chat, a 
 
62 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES, [VII. 
 
 gentle stroll, we also turned in ; and for the next eight 
 hours perfect silence reigned throughout our little encamp- 
 ment, except when Wilson's sob-like snores shook to their 
 foundation the canvas walls that sheltered him. 
 
 When I awoke — I do not know at what hour, for from 
 this time we kept no account of day or night — the white 
 sunlight was streaming into the tent, and the whole land- 
 scape was gleaming and glowing in the beauty of one of 
 the hottest summer-days I ever remember. We breakfast- 
 ed in our shirt-sleeves, and I was forced to wrap my head 
 in a white handkerchief for fear of the sun. As we were 
 all a little stiff after our ride, I could not resist the tempta- 
 tion of spending the day where we were, and examining 
 more leisurely the wonderful features of the neighborhood. 
 Independently of its natural curiosities, Thingvalla was 
 most interesting to me on account of the historical asFO- 
 ciations connected with it. Here, long ago, at a period 
 when feudal despotism was the only government known 
 throughout Europe, free parliaments used to sit in peace, 
 and regulate the affairs of the young Republic ; and to 
 this hour the precincts of its Commons House of Parlia- 
 ment are as distinct and unchanged as on the day when 
 the high-hearted fathers of the emigration first consecrated 
 them to the service of a free nation. By a freak of nature, 
 as the subsiding plain cracked and shivered into twenty 
 thousand fissures, an irregular oval area, of about two hun- 
 dred feet by fifty, was left almost entirely surrounded by a 
 crevice so deep and broad as to be utterly impassable ;^ 
 at one extremity alone a scanty causeway connected it with 
 the adjoining level, and allowed of access to its interior. 
 It is true, just at one point the encircling chasm grows so 
 narrow as to be within the possibility of a jump ; and an 
 ancient worthy, named Flosi, pursued by his enemies, did 
 actually take it at a fly ; but as leaping an inch short would 
 have entailed certain drowning in the bright green waters 
 
VIL] 
 
 THE ALTHING. 
 
 ^l 
 
 that sleep forty feet below, you can conceive there was 
 never much clanger of this entrance becoming a thorough- 
 fare. I confess that for one moment, while contemplating 
 the scene of Flosi's exploit, I felt, — like a true Briton, — 
 an idiotic desire to be able to say that I had done the 
 same : — that I survive to write this letter is a proof of my 
 having come subsequently to my senses. 
 
 A. The Althing. 
 
 C. The place where Flosi jumped. 
 
 B. The Hill of Laws. 
 D. Adjacent Chasm. 
 
 This spot then, erected by nature almost into a fortress, 
 the founders of the Icelandic constitution chose for the 
 meetings of their Thing,^ or Parliament, armed guards de- 
 fended the entrance, while the grave bonders deliberated 
 in security within : to this day, at the upper end of the 
 
 1 From thing, to speak. We have a vestige of the same word in 
 Dingwall, a town of Ross-shire. 
 
64 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VII. 
 
 place of meeting, may be seen the three hammocks, where 
 sat in state the chiefs and judges of the land. 
 
 But those grand old times have long since passed away. 
 Along the banks of the Oxeraa no longer glisten the tents 
 and booths of the assembled lieges ; no longer stalwart ber- 
 serks guard the narrow entrance to the Althing ; ravens alone 
 sit on the sacred Logberg ; and the floor of the old Icelandic 
 House of Commons is ignominiously cropped by the sheep 
 of the parson. For three hundred years did the gallant 
 little Republic maintain its independence — three hundred 
 years of unequalled literary and political vigor. At last 
 its day of doom drew near. Like the Scotch nobles in the 
 time of Elizabeth, their own chieftains intrigued against 
 the liberties of the Icelandic people ; and in 1261 the 
 island became an appanage of the Norwegian crown. Yet 
 even the deed embodying the concession of their inde- 
 pendence was drawn up in such haughty terms as to re- 
 semble rather the offer of an equal alliance than the re- 
 nunciation of imperial rights. Soon, however, the apathy 
 which invariably benumbs the faculties of a people too en- 
 tirely relieved from the discipline and obligation of self- 
 government, lapped in complete inactivity, moral, political, 
 and intellectual, — these once stirring islanders. On the 
 amalgamation of the three Scandinavian monarchies, at 
 the union of Calmar, the allegiance of the people of Ice- 
 land was passively transferred to the Danish crown. Ever 
 since that time, Danish proconsuls have administered their 
 government, and Danish restrictions have regulated their 
 trade. The traditions of their ancient autonomy have be- 
 come as unsubstantial and obsolete as those which record 
 vanished fame of their poets and historians, and the ex- 
 ploits of their mariners. It is true, the adoption of the 
 Lutheran religion galvanized for a moment into the sem- 
 blance of activity the old literary spirit. A printing-press 
 was introduced as early as 1530, and ever since the six- 
 
^Hiliiiiliiil 
 
VII.] A DEBATE, A. d. iooo. 67 
 
 teenth century many works of merit have been produced 
 from time to time by Icelandic genius. Shakespeare, Mil- 
 ton, and Pope have been translated into the native tongue ; 
 one of the best printed newspapers I have ever seen is 
 now published at Reykjavik ; and the Colleges of Copen- 
 hagen are adorned by many an illustrious Icelandic schol- 
 ar; but the glory of the old days is departed, and it is 
 across a wide desolate flat of ignoble annals, as dull and 
 arid as their own lava plains, that the student has to look 
 back upon the glorious drama of Iceland's early history. 
 As I gazed around on the silent, deserted plain, and paced 
 to and fro along the untrodden grass that now clothed the 
 Althing, I could scarcely believe it had ever been the bat- 
 tle-field where such keen and energetic wits encountered, 
 — that the fire-scathed rocks I saw before me were the 
 very same that had once inspired one of the most success- 
 ful rhetorical appeals ever hazarded in a public assembly. 
 
 As an account of the debate to which I allude has been 
 carefully preserved, I may as well give you an abstract of 
 it. A nfore characteristic leaf out of the Parliamentary 
 Annals of Iceland you could scarcely have. 
 
 In the summer of the year 1000, when Ethelred the 
 Unready ruled in England, and fourteen years after Hugh 
 Capet had succeeded the last Carlovingian on the throne 
 of France, — the Icelandic legislature was convened for the 
 consideration of a very important subject — no less impor- 
 tant, indeed, than an inquiry into the merits of a new re- 
 ligion lately brought into the country by certain emissa- 
 ries of Olaf Tryggveson, — the first Christian king of Nor 
 way, — -and the same who pulled down London bridge. 
 
 The assembly met. The Norse missionaries were 
 called upon to enunciate to the House the tenets of the 
 faith they were commissioned to disclose ; and the debate 
 began. Great and fierce was the difference of opinion. 
 The good old Tory party, supported by all the authority of 
 
68 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VII. 
 
 the Odin establishment, were violent in opposition. The 
 Whigs advocated the new arrangement, and, as the king 
 supported their own views, insisted strongly on the Di- 
 vine right. Several liberal members permitted themselves 
 to speak sarcastically of the Valhalla tap, and the ankles 
 of Freya. The discussion was at its height, when sudden- 
 ly a fearful peal of subterranean thunder roared around 
 the Althing. " Listen ! " cried an orator of the Pagan 
 party ; " how angry is Odin that we should even consider 
 the subject of a new religion. His fires will consume us." 
 To which a ready debater on the other side replied, by 
 "begging leave to ask the honorable gentleman, — with 
 whom were the gods angry when these rocks were melted ? " 
 — pointing to the devastated plain around him. Taking 
 advantage of so good a hit, the Treasury " whips" imme- 
 diately called for a division ; and the Christian religion was 
 adopted by a large majority. 
 
 The first Christian missionaries who came to Iceland 
 seem to have had a rather peculiar manner of enforcing 
 the truths of the Gospel. Their leader was a person of 
 of the name of Thangbrand. Like the protestant clergy- 
 men Queen Elizabeth despatched to convert Ireland, he 
 was bundled over to Iceland principally because he was 
 too disreputable to be allowed to live in Norway. The 
 old Chronicler gives a very quaint description of him. 
 "Thangbrand," he says, " was a passionate, ungovernable 
 person and a great man-slayer; but a good scholar, and 
 clever. Thorvald, and Veterlid the Scald, composed a 
 lampoon against him ; but he killed them both outright. 
 Thangbrand was two years in Iceland, and was the death of 
 three men before he left it." 
 
 From the Althing we strolled over to the Almanna Gja, 
 visiting the Pool of Execution on our way. As I have al- 
 ready mentioned, a river from the plateau above leaps over 
 the pre;ipice into the bottom of the Gja, and flows for a 
 
VII.] ALMANNA GJA. 69 
 
 certain distance between its walls. At the foot of the fall 
 the waters linger for a moment in a dark, deep, brimming 
 pool, hemmed in by a circle of ruined rocks ; to this pool, in 
 ancient times, all women convicted of capital crimes were 
 immediately taken and drowned. Witchcraft seems to have 
 been the principal weakness of ladies in those days, through- 
 out the Scandinavian countries. For a long period no dis- 
 grace was attached to its profession. Odin himself, we are 
 expressly told, was a great adept, and always found himself 
 very much exhausted at the end of his performance ; 
 which leads me to think that perhaps he dabbled in electro- 
 biology. At last the advent of Christianity threw discredit 
 on the practice ; severe punishments were denounced 
 against all who indulged in it ; and in the end its mys- 
 teries became the monopoly of the Laplanders. 
 
 All criminals, men and women, were tried by juries ; 
 and that the accused had the power of challenging the 
 jurymen empannelled to try them, appears from the follow- 
 ing extract from the Book of Laws : — " The judges shall go 
 out on Washday, /. ^., Saturday, and continue out for chal- 
 lenges, until the stm comes on Thingvalla on the Lord's- 
 day." And again, " The power of challenging shall cease 
 as soon as the sun can be no longer seen above the western 
 brink of the chasm, from the Logberg." 
 
 Turning aside from what, I dare say, was the scene of 
 many an unrecorded tragedy, we descended the gorge of 
 the Almanna Gja, towards the lake : and I took advantage 
 of the opportunity again to examine its marvellous con- 
 struction. The perpendicular walls of rock rose on either 
 hand from the flat greensward that carpeted its bottom, 
 pretty much as the waters of the Red sea must have risen 
 on each side of the fugitive Israelites. A blaze of light 
 smote the face of one cliff, while the other lay in the deep- 
 est shadow ; and on the rugged surface of each might still 
 be traced corresponding articulations, that once had dove 
 
7 O LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VI I. 
 
 tailed into each other, ere the igneous mass was rent 
 asunder. So unchanged, so recent seemed the vestiges of 
 this convulsion, that I felt as if I had been admitted to 
 witness one of nature's grandest and most violent operations, 
 almost in the very act of its execution. A walk of about 
 twenty minutes brought us to the borders of the lake — a 
 glorious expanse of water, fifteen miles long, by eight miles 
 broad, occupying a basin formed by the same hills, which 
 must also, I imagine, have arrested the further progress of 
 the lava torrent. A lovelier scene I have seldom witnessed. 
 In the foreground lay huge masses of rock and lava, toss- 
 ed about like the ruins of a world, and washed by waters 
 as bright and green as polished malachite. Beyond a bevy 
 of distant mountains, robed by the transparent atmosphere 
 in tints unknown to Europe, peeped over each other's 
 shoulders into the silver mirror at their feet, while here and 
 there from among their purple ridges columns of white 
 vapor rose like altar smoke toward the tranquil heaven. 
 
 On returning home we found dinner waiting for us. I 
 had invited the clergyman, and a German gentleman who 
 was lodging with him, to give us the pleasure of their com- 
 pany; and in ten minutes we had all become the best of 
 friends. It is true the conversation was carried on in 
 rather a wild jargon, made up of six different languages — ■ 
 Icelandic, English, German, Latin, Danish, French — but 
 in spite of the difficulty with which he expressed himself, 
 it was impossible not to be struck with the simple earnest 
 character of my German convive. He was about five-and 
 twenty, a '•'' doctor philosophicB^'' and had come to Iceland to 
 catch gnats. After having caught gnats in Iceland, he 
 intended, he said, to spend some years in catching gnats in 
 Spain — the privacy of Spanish gnats, as it appears, not 
 having been hitherto invaded. The truth is, my guest was 
 an entomologist, and in the pursuit of the objects of his 
 study was evidently prepared to approach hardships and 
 
VII.] START FOR THE GEYSIRS. 71 
 
 danger with a serenity that would not have been unworthy 
 of the apostle of a new religion. It was almost touching 
 to hear him describe the intensity of his joy when perhaps 
 days and nights of fruitless labors were at last rewarded 
 by the discovery of some hitherto unknown little fly ; and 
 it was with my whole heart that, at parting, I wished him 
 success in his career, and the fame that so much consci- 
 entious labor merited. From my allusion to this last re- 
 ward, however, he seemed almost to shrink, and, with a 
 sincerity it was impossible to doubt, disclaimed as ignoble 
 so poor a motive as a thirst for fame. His was one of 
 those calm laborious minds, seldom found but among the 
 Teutonic race, that — pursuing day by day with single- 
 minded energy some special object — live in a noble obscu- 
 rity, and die at last content with the consciousness of hav- 
 ing added one other stone to that tower of knowledge men 
 are building up toward heaven, even though the world 
 should never learn what strong and patient hands have 
 placed it there. 
 
 The next morning we started for the Geysirs : this time 
 dividing the bagg/age-train, and sending on the cook in 
 light marching order, with the materials for dinner. The 
 weather still remained unclouded, and each mile we ad- 
 vanced disclosed some new wonder in the unearthly land- 
 scape. A three hours' ride brought us to the Rabna Gja, 
 the eastern boundary of Thingvalla, and, winding up its 
 rugged face, we took our last look over the lovely plain 
 beneath us, and then manfully set forward across the same 
 kind of arid lava plateau as that which we had already 
 traversed before arriving at the Almanna Gja. But instead 
 of the boundless immensity which had then so much dis- 
 heartened us, the present prospect was terminated by a 
 range of quaint parti-colored hills, which rose before us in 
 such fantastic shapes that I could not take my eyes off 
 them. I do not know whether it was the strong coifee or 
 
72 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VII. 
 
 the invigorating air that stimulated my imagination ; but I 
 certainly felt convinced I was coming to some mystical 
 spot — out of space, out of time — where I should suddenly 
 light upon a green-scaled griffin, or golden-haired princess, 
 or other bonne fortune of the olden days. Certainly a more 
 appropriate scene for such an encounter could not be con- 
 ceived, than that which displayed itself, when we wheeled 
 at last round the flank of the scorched ridge we had been 
 approaching. A perfectly smooth grassy plain, about a 
 league square, and shaped like a horse-shoe, opened before 
 us, encompassed by bare cinder-like hills, that rose round 
 — red, black, and yellow — in a hundred uncouth peaks of 
 ash and slag. Not a vestige of vegetation relieved the 
 aridity of their vitrified sides, while the verdant carpet at 
 their feet only made the fire-moulded circle seem more 
 weird and impassable. Had I had a trumpet and a lance, 
 I should have blown a blast of defiance on the one, and 
 having shaken the other toward the four corners of the 
 world, would have calmly waited to see what next might 
 betide. Three arrows shot bravely forward would have 
 probably resulted in the discovery of a trap-door with an 
 iron ring ; but having neither trumpet, lance, nor arrow, 
 we simply alighted and lunched : yet even then I could 
 not help thinking how lucky it was that, not eating dates, 
 we could not inadvertently fling their stones into the eyes 
 of any inquisitive genie who might be in the neighbor- 
 hood. 
 
 After the usual hour's rest and change of horses, we 
 galloped away to the other side of the plain, and, doubling 
 the further horn of the semicircle, suddenly found ourselves 
 in a district as unlike the cinder mountains we had quitted 
 as they had differed from the volcanic scenery of the day 
 before. On the left lay a long rampart of green hills, 
 opening up every now and then into Scottish glens and 
 gorges, while from their roots to the horizon stretched a 
 
VII.] MOUNT HECLA. 73 
 
 vast breadth of meadow-land, watered by two or three 
 rivers, that wound, and twisted, and coiled about, like blue 
 serpents. Here and there, white volumes of vapor, that 
 rose in endless wreaths from the ground, told of mighty 
 cauldrons at work beneath that moist cool verdant carpet ; 
 while large silvery lakes, and flat-topped isolated hills, re- 
 lieved the monotony of the level land, and carried on the 
 eye to where the three snowy peaks of Mount Hecla shone 
 cold and clear against the sky. 
 
 Of course it was rather tantalizing to pass so near this 
 famous burning mountain without having an opportunity 
 of ascending it j but the expedition would have taken up 
 too much time. In appearance Hecla differs very little 
 from the innumerable other volcanic hills with which the 
 island is studded. Its cone consists of a pyramid of stone 
 and scoriae, rising to the height of about five thousand feet, 
 and welded together by bands of molten matter which 
 have issued from its sides. From a.d. 1004 to 1766 there 
 have been twenty-three eruptions, occurring at intervals 
 which have varied in duration from six to seventy-six years. 
 The one of 1766 was remarkably violent. It commenced 
 on the 5th of April by the appearance of a huge pillar of 
 black sand mounting slowly into the heavens, accompanied 
 by subterranean thunders, and all the other symptoms 
 which precede volcanic disturbances. Then a coronet of 
 flame encircled the crater ; masses of red rock, pumice, 
 and magnetic stones were flung out with tremendous vio- 
 lence to an incredible distance, and in such continuous 
 multitudes as to resemble a swarm of bees clustering over 
 the mountain. One boulder of pumice six feet in circum- 
 ference was pitched twenty miles away ; another of mag- 
 netic iron fell at a distance of fifteen. The surface of the 
 earth was covered, for a circuit of one hundred and fifty 
 miles, with a layer of sand four inches deep ; the air was 
 so darkened by it, that at a place one hundred and forty 
 
74 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII= 
 
 miles off, white paper held up at a little distance could not 
 be distinguished from black. The fishermen could not put 
 to sea on account of darkness, and the inhabitants of the 
 Orkney islands were frightened out of their senses by 
 showers of what they thought must be black snow. On 
 the 9th of April, the lava began to overflow, and ran for 
 five miles in a south-westerly direction, whilst, some days 
 later, — in order that no element might be wanting to 
 mingle in this devil's charivari, — a vast column of water, 
 like Robin Hood's second arrow, split up through the 
 cinder pillar to the height of several hundred feet ; the 
 horror of the spectacle being further enhanced by an ac- 
 companiment of subterranean cannonading and dire re- 
 ports, heard at a distance of fifty miles. 
 
 Striking as all this must have been, it sinks into com- 
 parative tameness and insignificance, beside the infinitely 
 more terrible phenomena which attended the eruption of 
 another volcano, called Skapta Jokul. 
 
 Of all countries in Europe, Iceland is the one which 
 has been the most minutely mapped, not even excepting 
 the ordnance survey of Ireland. The Danish Government 
 seem to have had a hobby about it, and the result has been 
 a chart so beautifully executed, that every little crevice, 
 each mountain torrent, each flow of lava, is laid down with 
 an accuracy perfectly astonishing. One huge blank, how- 
 ever, in the south-west corner of this map of Iceland, mars 
 the integrity of its almost microscopic delineations. To 
 every other part of the island the engineer has succeeded 
 in penetrating ; one vast space alone of about four hun- 
 dred square miles has defied his investigation. Over the 
 area occupied by the Skapta Jokul, amid its mountain- 
 cradled fields of snow and icy ridges, no human foot has 
 ever wandered. Yet it is from the bosom of this desert 
 district that has descended the most frightful visitation 
 ever known to have desolated the island. 
 
VII.] SKAPTA yOKUL. 75 
 
 This event occurred in the year 1783. The preceding 
 winter and spring had been unusually mild. Toward the end 
 of May, a light bluish fog began to float along the confines 
 of the untrodden tracts of Skapta, accompanied in the be- 
 ginning of June by a great trembling of the earth. On the 
 8th of that month, immense pillars of smoke collected over 
 the hill country towards the north, and coming down against 
 the wind in a southerly direction, enveloped the whole dis- 
 trict of Sida in darkness, A whirlwind of ashes then swept 
 over the face of the country, and on the loth, innumerable 
 fire spouts were seen leaping and flaring amid the icy hol- 
 lows of the mountain, while the river Skapta, one of the 
 largest in the island, having first rolled down to the plain 
 a vast volume of fetid waters mixed with sand, suddenly 
 disappeared. 
 
 Two days afterwards a stream of lava, issuing from 
 sources to which no one has ever been able to penetrate, 
 came sliding down the bed of the dried-up river, and in a 
 little time, — though the channel was six hundred feet deep 
 and two hundred broad, — the glowing deluge overflowed its 
 banks, crossed the low country of Meddafland, ripping the 
 turf up before it like a table-cloth, and poured into a great 
 lake whose affrighted waters flew hissing and screaming 
 into the air at the apprbach of the fiery intruder. Within 
 a few more days the basin of the lake itself was complete- 
 ly filled, and having separated into two streams, the unex- 
 hausted torrent again recommenced its march ; in one di- 
 rection overflowing some ancient lava fields, — in the other, 
 re-entering the channel of the Skapta, and leaping down 
 the lofty cataract of Stapafoss. But this was not all ; 
 while one lava flood had chosen the Skapta for its bed, 
 another, descending in a different direction, was working 
 like ruin within and on either side the banks of the Hver- 
 fisfliot, rushing into the plain, by all accounts, with even 
 greater fury and velocity. Whether the two issued from 
 
76 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 
 
 the same crater it is impossible to say, as the sources ol 
 both were far away within the heart of the unapproach- 
 able desert, and even the extent of lava flow can only 
 be measured from the spot where it entered the inhabited 
 districts. The stream which flowed down Skapta is calcu- 
 lated to be about fifty miles in length by twelve or fifteen 
 at its greatest breadth ; that which rolled down the Hver- 
 fisfliot, at forty miles in length by seven in breadth. 
 Where it was imprisoned, between the high banks of Skapta, 
 the lava is five or six hundred feet thick ; but as soon as it 
 spread out into the plain its depth never exceeded one hun- 
 dred feet. The eruption of sand, ashes, pumice, and lava, 
 continued till the end of August, when the Plutonic drama 
 concluded with a violent earthquake. 
 
 For a whole year a canopy of cinder-laden cloud hung 
 over the island. Sand and ashes irretrievably overwhelmed 
 thousands of acres of fertile pasturage. The Faroe islands, 
 the Shetlands, and the Orkneys were deluged widi volcanic 
 dust, which perceptibly contaminated even the pure skies 
 of England and Holland. Mephitic vapors tainted the 
 atmosphere of the entire island ; — even the grass, which no 
 cinder rain had stifled, completely withered up ; — the fish 
 perished in the poisoned sea. A murrain broke out among 
 the cattlCj and a disease resembling scurvy attacked the in- 
 habitants themselves. Stephenson has calculated that 9000 
 men, 28,000 horses, 11,000 cattle, 190,000 sheep, died from 
 the effects of this one eruption. The most moderate cal- 
 culation puts the number of human deaths at upwards of 
 1300 ; and of cattle, etc., at about 156,000. 
 
 The whole of this century had proved most fatal to the 
 unfortunate people of Iceland. At its commencement 
 small-pox destroyed more than 16,000 persons ; nearly 
 10,000 more perished by a famine consequent on a succes- 
 sion of inclement seasons ; while from time to time the 
 
VI I.J THE GEYSIRS. 77 
 
 southern coasts were considerably depopulated by the in- 
 cursions of English and even Algerine pirates. 
 
 The rest of our day's journey lay through a country 
 less interesting than the district we had traversed before 
 luncheon. For the most part we kept on along the foot of 
 the hills, stopping now and then for a drink of milk at the 
 occasional farms perched upon their slopes. Sometimes 
 turning up a green and even bushy glen (there are no trees 
 in Iceland, the nearest approach to anything of the kind 
 being a low dwarf birch, hardly worthy of being called a 
 shrub), we would cut across the shoulder of some project- 
 ing spur, and obtain a wider prospect of the level land 
 upon our right ; or else keeping more down in the flat, we 
 had to flounder for half an hour up to the horses' shoulders 
 in an Irish bog. After about five hours of this work we 
 reached the banks of a broad and rather singular river, 
 called the Briiara. Half-way across it was perfectly forda- 
 ble ; but exactly in the middle was a deep cleft, into which 
 the waters from either side spilt themselves, and then in a 
 collected volume roared over a precipice a little lower 
 down. Across this cleft some wooden planks were thrown, 
 giving the traveller an opportunity of boasting that he had 
 crossed a river on a bridge which itself was under water. 
 By this time we had all begun to be very tired, and very 
 hungry; — it was ii o'clock P.M. We had been twelve or 
 thirteen hours on horseback, not to mention occasional 
 half-hours of pretty severe walking after the ptarmigan and 
 plover. Many were the questions we addressed to Sigurdr 
 on the distance yet remaining, and many the conjectures 
 we hazarded as to whether the cook would have arrived in 
 time to get dinner ready for us. At last, after another two 
 hours' weary jogging, we descried, straight in front, a low 
 steep brown rugged hill, standing entirely detached from 
 the range at the foot of which we had been riding ; and in 
 
78 
 
 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
 
 [VII. 
 
 a few minutes more, wheeling round its outer end, we 
 found ourselves in the presence of the steaming Geysirs. 
 
 I do not know that I can give you a better notion of the 
 appearance of the place than by saying that it looked as if 
 — for about a quarter of a mile — the ground had been 
 honey-combed by disease into numerous sores and orifices ; 
 not a blade of grass grew on its hot, inflamed surface, 
 which consisted of unwholesome-looking red livid clay, or 
 crumpled shreds or shards of slough-like incrustations. 
 Naturally enough, our first impulse on dismounting was to 
 scamper off at once to the Great Geysir. As it lay at the 
 furthest end of the congeries of hot springs, in order to 
 reach it we had to run the gauntlet of all the pools of boil- 
 ing water and scalding quagmires of soft clay that inter- 
 vened, and consequently arrived on the spot with our an- 
 kles nicely poulticed. But the occasion justified our eager- 
 ness. A smooth, silicious basin, seventy-two feet in diam- 
 eter and four feet deep, with a hole at the bottom as in a 
 washing-basin on board a steamer, stood before us brimful 
 of water just upon the simmer ; while up into the air above 
 
 A. Basin. B. Funnel, 
 
 our heads rose a great column of vapor, looking as if it 
 was going to turn into the Fisherman's Genie. The ground 
 about the brim was composed of layers of incrustated sili- 
 ca, like the outside of an oyster, sloping gently down on 
 all sides from the edge of the basin. 
 
VII.] THE GEYSIRS. 79 
 
 Having satisfied our curiosity with this cursory inspec- 
 tion of what we had come so far to see, hunger compelled 
 us to look about with great anxiety for the cook ; and you 
 may fancy our delight at seeing that functionary in the 
 very act of dishing up dinner on a neighboring hillock. 
 Sent forward at an early hour, under the chaperonage of a 
 guide, he had arrived about two hours before us, and seiz- 
 ing with a general's eye the key of the position, at once 
 turned an idle, babbling little Geysir into a camp-kettle, 
 dug a bake-house in the hot soft clay, and improvising a 
 kitchen-range at a neighboring vent, had made himself 
 completely master of the situation. It was about one 
 o'clock in the morning when we sat down to dinner, and 
 as light as day. 
 
 As the baggage-train with our tents and beds had not 
 yet arrived, we fully appreciated our luck in being treated 
 to so dry a night ; and having eaten everything we could 
 lay hands on, were sat quietly down to chess, and coffee 
 brewed in Geysir water j when suddenly it seemed as if be- 
 neath our very feet a quantity of subterraneous cannon 
 were going off ; the whole earth shook, and Sigurdr, start- 
 ing to his feet, upset the chess-board (I was just beginning 
 to get the best of the game)j^and flung off full speed towards 
 the great basin. By the time we reached its brim, however, 
 the noise had ceased, and all we could see was a slight 
 movement in the centre, as if an angel had passed by and 
 troubled the water. Irritated at this false alarm, we deter- 
 mined to revenge ourselves by going and tormenting the 
 Strokr. Strokr — or the churn — you must know, is an un- 
 fortunate Geysir, with so little command over his temper 
 and his stomach, that you can get a rise out of him when- 
 ever you like. All that is necessary is to collect a quantity 
 of sods, and throw them down his funnel. As he has no 
 basin to protect him from these liberties, you can approach 
 to the very edge of the pipe, about five feet in diameter. 
 
8o LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VII. 
 
 and look down at the boiling water which is perpetually 
 seething at the bottom. In a few minutes the dose of turf 
 you have just administered begins to disagree with him ; 
 he works himself up into an awful passion — tormented by 
 the qualms of incipient sickness, he groans and hisses, and 
 boils up, and spits at you with malicious vehemence, until 
 at last, with a roar of mingled pain and rage, he throws up 
 into the air a column of water forty feet high, which car- 
 ries with it all the sods that have been chucked in, and 
 scatters them scalded and half-digested at your feet. So 
 irritated has the poor thing's stomach become by the dis- 
 cipline it has undergone, that even long after all the foreign 
 matter has been thrown off, it goes on retching and sputter- 
 ing, until at last nature is exhausted, when, sobbing and 
 sighing to itself, it sinks back into the bottom of its den. 
 
 Put into high spirits by the success of this performance, 
 we turned away to examine the remaining spring. I do not 
 know, however, that any of the rest are worthy of particular 
 mention. They all resemble in character the two I have 
 described, the only difference being that they are infinitely 
 smaller, and of much less power and importance. One other 
 remarkable formation in the neighbourhood must not be 
 passed unnoticed. Imagine a large irregular opening in 
 tlie surface of the soft white clay, filled to the very brim 
 with scalding water, perfectly still, and of as bright a blue 
 as that of the Grotto Azzuro at Capri, through whose trans- 
 parent depths you can see down into the mouth of a vast 
 subaqueous cavern, which runs, Heaven knows how far, in 
 a horizontal direction beneath your feet. Its walls and 
 varied cavities . really looked as if they were built of the 
 purest lapis lazuli — and so thin seemed the crust that roofed 
 it in, we almost fancied it might breakthrough, and tumble 
 us all into the fearful beautiful bath. 
 
 Having by this time taken a pretty good look at the 
 principal features of our new domain, I wrapped myself up 
 
VII.] THE GEYSIRS. 8i 
 
 in a cloak and went to sleep ; leaving orders that I should 
 not be called until after the tent had arrived, and our beds 
 were ready. Sigurdr followed my example, but the Doctor 
 went out shooting. 
 
 As our principal object in coming so far was to see an 
 eruption of the Great Geysir, it was of course necessary we 
 should wait his pleasure ; En fact, our movements entirely 
 depended upon his. For the next two or three days, there- 
 fore, like pilgrims round some ancient shrine, we patiently 
 kept watch ; but he scarcely deigned to vouchsafe us the 
 slightest manifestations of his latent energies. Two or 
 three times the cannonading we had heard immediately 
 after our arrival recommenced, — and once an eruption to 
 the height of about ten feet occurred ; but so brief was its 
 duration, that by the time we were on the spot, although 
 the tent was not eighty yards distant, all was over. As 
 after every effort of the fountain the water in the basin 
 mysteriously ebbs back into the funnel, this performance, 
 though unsatisfactory in itself, gave us an opportunity of 
 approaching the mouth of the pipe, and looking down into 
 its scalded gullet. In an hour afterwards, the basin was 
 brimful as ever. 
 
 Tethered down by our curiosity to a particular spot for 
 an indefinite period, we had to while away the hours as best 
 we could. We played chess, collected specimens, photo- 
 graphed the encampment, the guides, the ponies, and one or 
 two astonished natives. Every now and then we went out 
 shooting over the neighboring flats, and once I ventured 
 on a longer expedition among the mountains to our left. 
 The views I got were beautiful, — ridge rising beyond ridge 
 in eternal silence, like gigantic ocean waves, whose tumult 
 has been suddenly frozen into stone ; — but the dread of the 
 Geysir going off during my absence made me almost too 
 fidgety to enjoy them. The weather luckily remained beau- 
 tiful, with the exception of one little spell of rain, which 
 
 6 
 
82 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [V 11, 
 
 came to make us all the more grateful for the sunshine, — 
 and we fed like princes. Independently of the game, duck, 
 plover, ptarmigan, and bittern, with which our own guns 
 supplied us, a young lamb was always in the larder, — not to 
 mention reindeer tongues, skier, — a kind of sour curds, 
 excellent when well made, — milk, cheese, whose taste and 
 nature baffles description, bi'^cuit and bread, sent us as a 
 free gift by the lady of the neighboring farm. In fact, so 
 noble is Icelandic hospitality, that I really believe there was 
 nothing within fifty miles round we might not have obtained 
 for the asking, had we desired it. As for Fitz, he became 
 quite the enfant gate of a neighboring family. 
 
 Having unluckily caught cold, instead of sleeping in the 
 tent, he determined to seek shelter under a solid roof-tree, 
 and, conducted by our guide Olaf, set off on his pony at 
 bed-time in search of a habitation. The next morning he 
 reappeared so unusually radiant that I could not help in- 
 quiring what good fortune had in the meantime befallen 
 him : upon which he gave me such an account of his last 
 night's reception at the farm, that I was almost tempted 
 to bundle tent and beds down the throat of our irritable 
 friend Strokr, and throw myself for the future upon the 
 hospitality of the inhabitants. It is true, I had read in Van 
 Troil of something of the kind, but until now I never fully 
 believed it. The Doctor shall tell his own story. 
 
 " No sooner," said he, '' had I presented myself at the 
 door, and made known my errand, than I was immediately 
 welcomed by the whole family, and triumphantly inducted 
 into the guest quarters : everything the house could produce 
 was set before me, and the whole society stood by to see 
 that I enjoyed myself. As I had but just dined an addi- 
 tional repast was no longer essential to my happiness ; but 
 all explanation was useless, and I did my best to give them 
 satisfaction. Immediately on rising from the table, the 
 young lady of the house — (old Van Troil says it is either 
 
VII.] THE GEYSIRS, 83 
 
 tlie mother or the daughter of the house, if she be grown 
 up, who performs this office) — proposed by signs to conduct 
 me to my apartment ; taking in one hand a large plate of 
 skier, and in the other a bottle of brandy, she led the way 
 through a passage built of turf and stones to the place 
 where I was ^o sleep. Having watched her deposit — not 
 without misgivings, for I knew it was expected both should 
 be disposed of before morning — the skier by my bedside, 
 and the brandy bottle under my pillow, I was preparing to 
 make her a polite bow, and to wish her a very good night, 
 when she advanced towards me, and with a winning grace 
 difficult to resist, insisted upon helping me off with my coat 
 and then, — ^proceeding to extremities, — with my shoes and 
 stockings. At this most critical part of the proceedings, I 
 naturally imagined her share of the performance would 
 conclude, and that I should at last be restored to that pri- 
 vacy which at such seasons is generally considered appro- 
 priate. Not a bit of it. Before I knew where I was, I 
 found myself sitting in a chair, in my shirt, trouserless, while 
 my fair tire-woman was engaged in neatly folding up the 
 ravished garments on a neighboring chair. She then in 
 the most simple manner in the world, helped me into bed, 
 tucked me up, and having said a quantity of pretty things in 
 Icelandic, gave me a hearty kiss and departed. If," he 
 added, " you see anything remarkable in my appearance, it 
 is probably because — 
 
 ' This very morn I've felt the sweet surprise 
 Of unexpected lips on sealed eyes ; ' 
 
 by which he poetically intimated the pleasing ceremony 
 which had awaked him to the duties of the day. I think it 
 needless to subjoin that the Doctor's cold did not get better 
 as long as we remained in the neighborhood, and that, 
 had it not been for the daily increasing fire of his looks, 
 
84 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VII. 
 
 I should have begun to be alarmed at so protracted an 
 indisposition. 
 
 We had how been keeping watch for three days over the 
 Geysir, in languid expectation of the eruption which was to 
 set us free. All the morning of the fourth day I had been 
 playing chess with Sigurdr ; Fitzgerald was photographing, 
 Wilson was in the act of announcing luncheon, when a cry 
 from the guides made us start to our feet, and with one 
 common impulse rush towards the basin. The usual sub- 
 terranean thunders had already commenced. A violent 
 agitation was disturbing the centre of the pool. Suddenly 
 a dome of water lifted itself up to the height of eight or ten 
 feet, — then.burst, and fell ; immediately after which a shining 
 liquid column, or rather a sheaf of columns wreathed in 
 robes of vapor, sprung into the air, and in a succession of 
 jerking leaps, each higher than the last, flung their silver 
 crests against the sky. For a few minutes the fountain held 
 its own, then all at once appeared to lose its ascending energy 
 The unstable waters faltered, drooped, fell, " like a broken 
 purpose," back upon themselves, and were immediately 
 sucked down into the recesses of their pipe. 
 
 The spectacle was certainly magnificent ; but no descrip- 
 tion can give any idea of its most striking features. The 
 enormous wealth of water, its vitality, its hidden power. — • 
 the illimitable breadth of sunlit vapor, rolling out in ex- 
 haustless profusion. — all combined to make one feel the 
 stupendous energy of nature's slightest movements. 
 
 And yet I do not believe the exhibition was so fine as 
 some that have been seen : from the first burst upwards to 
 the moment the last jet retreated into the pipe, was no more 
 than a space of seven or eight minutes, and at no moment 
 did the crown of the column reach higher than sixty or 
 seventy feet above the surface of the basin. Now, early 
 travellers talk of three hundred feet, which must, of course 
 be fabulous ; but many trustworthy persons have judged 
 
VI I. ] THE GEYSIRS. 85 
 
 the eruptions at two hundred feet, while well-authenticated 
 accounts — when the elevation of the jet has been actually 
 measured — make it to have attained a height of upwards of 
 one hundred feet. 
 
 With regard to the internal machinery by which these 
 waterworks are set in motion, I will only say that the most 
 received theory seems to be that which supposes the exist- 
 ence of a chamber in the heated earth, almost, but not quite 
 filled with water, and communicating with the upper air by 
 means of a pipe, whose lower orifice, instead of being in the 
 roof, is at the side of the cavern, and below the surface of 
 the subterranean pond. The water, kept by the surrounding 
 furnaces at boiling point, generates of course a continuous 
 supply of steam, for which some vent must be obtained; as 
 it cannot escape by the funnel, — the lower mouth of which 
 is under water, — it squeezes itself up within the arching roof 
 until at last, compressed beyond all endurance, it strains 
 against the rock, and pushing down the intervening waters 
 with its broad, strong back, forces them below the level of 
 the funnel, and dispersing part, and driving part before it, 
 rushes forth in triumph to the upper air. The fountains, 
 therefore, that we see mounting to the sky during an eruption 
 are nothing but the superincumbent mass of waters in the 
 pipe driven up in confusion before the steam at the mo- 
 ment it obtains its liberation.^ 
 
 I Professor Bunsen has lately announced a chemical theory, which 
 I believe has been received with favor by the scientific world. He 
 points to the fact that water, after being long subjected to heat, loses 
 much of the air contained in it, has the cohesion of its molecules much 
 increased, and requires a higher temperature to bring it to boil ; at 
 which moment the production of vapor becomes so great, and so in- 
 stantaneous, as to cause explosion. The bursting of furnace boilers 
 is often attributable to this cause. Now, the water at the bottom of 
 the well of the Great Geysir is found to be of constantly increasing 
 temperature up to the moment of an eruption, when on one occasion 
 it was as high as 261*^ Fahrenheit. Professor Bunsen's idea is that on 
 
86 
 
 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. 
 
 [VII. 
 
 The accompanying sketch may perhaps help you to 
 understand my meaning. 
 
 The last gulp of water had disappeared down the fun- 
 nel. We were standing at the bottom of the now empty 
 basin^ gazing into each other's faces with joyous astonish- 
 ment, when suddenly we perceived a horseman come fran- 
 tically galloping round the base of the neighboring hill to- 
 wards us. The state of the case was only too evident. He 
 had seen the masses of vapor rising round the fountain, 
 and guessing "what was up^'^ had strained every nerve to 
 arrive in time. As there was no mutual friend present to 
 introduce us to each other, — of course under ordinary cir- 
 cumstances I should have wrapped myself in that reserve 
 which is the birthright of every Briton, and pretended 
 never even to have noticed his arrival ; but the sight we 
 had just seen had quite upset my nerves, — and I confess, 
 with shame, that I so far compromised myself, as to mau- 
 
 reaching some unknown point above that temperature, ebullition takes 
 place, vapor is suddenly generated in enormous quantity, and an erup- 
 tion of the superior column of water is the consequence. 
 
VII.] HOSPITABLE PREPARATIONS. 87 
 
 gurate a conversation with the stranger. In extenuation 
 of my conduct, I must be allowed to add, that the new- 
 comer was not a fellow-countryman, but of the French 
 tongue, and of the naval profession. 
 
 Occupying then the door of my tent — by way of van- 
 tage ground, as soon as the stranger was come within 
 earshot, I lifted up my voice, and cried in a style of Ara- 
 bian familiarity, " O thou that ridest so furiously, — weary 
 and disappointed one, — turn in, I pray thee, into the tent 
 of thy servant, and eat bread, and drinic wine, that thy 
 soul maybe comforted." To which he answered and said, 
 "Man, — dweller in sulphureous places, — I will not eat 
 bread, nor drink wine, neither will I enter into thy tent, 
 until I have measured out a resting-place for my Lord^the 
 Prince." 
 
 At this interesting moment our acquaintance was inter- 
 rupted by the appearance of two other horsemen — the one 
 a painter, the other a geologist — attached to the expedition 
 of Prince Napoleon. They informed us that His Imperial 
 Highness had reached Reykjavik two days after we had 
 left, that he had encamped last night at Thingvalla, and 
 might be expected here in about four hours : they them- 
 selves having come on in advance to prepare for his ar- 
 rival. My first care was to order coffee for the tired 
 Frenchmen ; and then — feeling that long residence having 
 given us a kind of proprietorship in the Geysirs, we were 
 bound to do the honors of the place to the approach- 
 ing band of travellers, — I summoned the cook and en- 
 larging in a long speech on the gravity of the occasion, 
 gave orders that he should make a holocaust of all the 
 remaining game, and get under way a plum-pudding, 
 whose dimensions should do himself and England credit. 
 A long table having been erected within the tent, Sigurdr 
 started on a plundering expedition to the neighboring 
 farm, Fitzgerald undertook the ordering of the feast, 
 
88 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VII. 
 
 while I rode on my pony across the morass, m hopes 
 of being able to shoot a few additional plover. In a couple 
 of hours afterwards, just as I was stalking a duck that lay 
 innocently basking on the bosom of the river, a cloud of 
 horsemen swept round the base of the distant mountain, 
 and returning home, I found the encampment I had left so 
 deserted — alive and populous with as merry a group of 
 Frenchmen as might ever be one's fortune to fall in with. 
 Of course they were dressed in every variety of costume, 
 long boots, picturesque brigand-looking hats, with here and 
 there a sprinkling of Scotch caps from Aberdeen ; but — 
 whatever might be the head-dress, underneath you might 
 be sure to find a kindly, cheery face. My old friend Count 
 Trampe, who had accompanied the expedition, at once pre- 
 sented me to the Prince, who was engaged in sounding the 
 depth of the pipe of the Great Geysir, — and encouraged by 
 the gracious reception which His Imperial Highness ac- 
 corded me, I ventured to inform him that " there was a 
 poor banquet toward," of which I trusted he — and as many 
 of his officers as the table could hold — would condescend 
 to partake. After a little hesitation, — caused, I presume, 
 by fear of our being put to inconvenience, — he was kind 
 enough to signify his acceptance of my proposal, and in a 
 few minutes afterwards with a cordial frankness I fully 
 appreciated, allowed me to have the satisfaction of receiv- 
 ing him as a guest within my tent. 
 
 Although I never had the pleasure of seeing Prince Na- 
 poleon before, I should have known him among a thou- 
 sand, from his remarkable likeness to his uncle, the first 
 Emperor. A stronger resemblance, I conceive, could 
 scarcely exist between two persons. The same delicate, 
 sharply cut features, thin refined mouth, and firm deter- 
 mined jaw. The Prince's frame, however, is built alto- 
 gether on a larger scale, and his eyes, instead of being of 
 
VII.] HOSPITABLE PREPARA TIOMS. 89 
 
 a ccid piercing blue — are soft and brown, with quite a dif 
 ferent expression. 
 
 Though of course a little Barmicidal. the dinner went 
 off very well, as every dinner must do where such merry 
 companions are the convives. We had some difficulty 
 about stowing away the legs of a tall philosopher, and to 
 each knife three individuals were told off ; but the birds 
 were not badly cooked, and the plum-pudding arrived in 
 time to convert a questionable success into an undoubted 
 triumph. 
 
 On rising from table, each one strolled away in what- 
 ever direction his particular taste suggested. The painter 
 to sketch ; the geologist to break stones ; the philosopher 
 to moralize, I presume, — at least he lighted a cigar, — and 
 the rest to superintend the erection of the tents which had 
 just arrived. 
 
 In an hour afterwards, sleep — though not altogether 
 silence — for loud and strong rose the choral service in- 
 toned to Morpheus from every side — reigned supreme over 
 the encampment, whose canvas habitations, huddled to- 
 gether on the desolated plateau, looked almost Crimean. 
 This last notion, I suppose, must have mingled with ray 
 dreams, for not long afterwards I found myself in full swing 
 towards a Russian battery, that banged and bellowed, and 
 cannonaded about my ears in a fashion frightful to hear. 
 Apparently I was serving in the French attack, for clear 
 and shrill above the tempest rose the cry, " Alerte ! alerte ! 
 aux armes, Monseigneur ! aux armes ! " The ground shook, 
 volumes of smoke rose before my eyes, and completely hid 
 the defences of Sebastopol ; which fact, on reflection, I 
 perceived to be the less extraordinary, as I was standing 
 in my shirt at the door of a tent in Iceland. The premon- 
 itory symptoms of an eruption, which I had taken for a 
 Russian cannonading, had awakened the French sleepers, 
 — a universal cry was pervading the encampment, — and the 
 
90 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 
 
 entire settlement had turned out — chiefly in bare legs — to 
 witness the event which the reverberating earth and steam- 
 ing water seemed to prognosticate. Old Geysir, however, 
 proved less courteous than we had begun to hope, for 
 after laboring uneasily in his basin for a few minutes, he 
 roused himself on his hind-legs — ^fell — made one more ef- 
 fort, — and then giving it up as a bad job, sank back into 
 his accustomed inaction, and left the disappointed assem- 
 bly to disperse to their respective dormitories. 
 
 The next morning, the whole encampment was stirring 
 at an early hour with preparations for departure ; for un- 
 satisfactory as it had been, the French considered them- 
 selves absolved by the partial performance they had wit- 
 nessed from any longer " making antechamber," as they 
 said, to so capricious a functionary. Being very anxious 
 to have one more trial at photographing Strokr, I ventured 
 to suggest that the necessary bolus of sods should be ad- 
 ministered to him. In a few minutes two or three cart- 
 loads of turf were seething and wallowing within him. In 
 the mean time, Fitz seized the opportunity of the Prince 
 being at breakfast to do a picture of him seated on a chair, 
 with his staff standing around him, and looking the image 
 of Napoleon before the battle of Austerlitz. A good twenty 
 minutes had now elapsed since the emetic had been given, 
 • — no symptoms of any result had as yet appeared, — and 
 the French began to get impatient ; inuendoes were haz- 
 arded to the disadvantage of Strokr's reputation for con- 
 sistency, — inuendoes, which I confess touched me nearly, 
 and made me feel like a showman whose dog has misbe- 
 haved. At last the whole party rode off \ but the rear 
 horseman had not disappeared round the neighboring hill 
 before— splash ! bang ! — fifty feet up into the air drove the 
 dilatory fountain, with a fury which amply avenged the af- 
 front put upon it, and more than vindicated my good opin- 
 ion. All our endeavors, however, to photograph the erup« 
 
VII.] CHANGE. 91 
 
 tion proved abortive. We had already attempted both 
 Strokr and the Great Geysir, but in the case of the latter 
 the exhibition was always concluded before the plate could 
 be got ready ; and although, as far as Strokr is concerned, 
 you can tell within a certain period when the performance 
 will take place, yet the interval occurring between the dose 
 and the explosion varies so capriciously, that unless you 
 are content to spend many days upon the spot, it would be 
 almost impossible to hit it off exactly. On this last occa- 
 sion, — although we did not prepare the plate until a good 
 twenty minutes after the turf was thrown in, — the spring 
 remained inactive so much longer than is usual that the 
 collodion became quite insensitive, and the eruption left 
 no impression whatever upon it. 
 
 Of our return journey to Reykjavik I think I have no 
 very interesting particulars to give you. During the early 
 part of the morning there had been a slight threatening of 
 rain ; but by twelve o'clock it had settled down into one 
 of those still dark days, which wrap even the most familiar 
 landscape in a mantle of mystery. A heavy, low-hung, 
 steel-colored pall was stretched almost entirely across the 
 heavens, except where along the flat horizon a broad stripe 
 of opal atmosphere let the eye wander into space, in search 
 of the pearly gateways of Paradise. On the other side 
 rose the contorted lava mountains, their bleak heads knock- 
 ing against the solid sky and stained of an inky blackness, 
 which changed into a still more lurid tint where the local 
 reds struggled up through the shadow that lay brooding 
 over the desolate scene. If within the domain of nature 
 such another region is to be found, it can only be in the 
 heart of those awful solitudes which science has unveiled 
 to us amid the untrodden fastnesses of the lunar moun- 
 tains. An hour before reaching our old camping-ground at 
 Thingvalla, as if summoned by enchantment, a dull grey 
 mist closed around us, and suddenly confounded in undis- 
 
92 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 
 
 tinguishable ruin the glory and the terror of the panorama 
 we had traversed ; sky, mountains, horizon, all had disap- 
 peared ; and as we strained our eyes from the edge of the 
 Rabna Gja across the monotonous grey level at our feet, it 
 was almost difficult to believe that there lay the same ma- 
 gical plain, the first sight of which had become almost an 
 epoch in our lives. 
 
 I had sent on cook, baggage, and guides, some hours 
 before we ourselves started, so that on our arrival we found 
 a dry, cosy tent, and a warm dinner awaiting us. The 
 rapid transformation of the aspect of the country, which I 
 had just witnessed, made me quite understand how com- 
 pletely the success of an expedition in Iceland must de- 
 pend on the weather, and fully accounted for the difference 
 I had observed in the amount of enjoyment different trav- 
 ellers seemed to have derived from it. It is one thing to 
 ride forty miles a day through the most singular scenery in 
 the world, when a radiant sun brings out every feature of 
 the country into startling distinctness, transmuting the dull 
 tormented earth into towers, domes, and pinnacles of 
 gleaming metal, — and weaves for every distant summit a 
 robe of variegated light, such as the " Delectable Moun- 
 tains " must have worn for the rapt gaze of weary " Chris- 
 tian ; " — and another to plod over the same forty miles, 
 drenched to the skin, seeing nothing but the dim, grey 
 roots of hills, that rise you know not how, and you care 
 not where, — with no better employment than to look at 
 your watch, and wonder when you shall reach your jour- 
 ney's end. If, in addition to this, you have to wait, as very 
 often must be the case, for many hours after your own ar- 
 rival, wet, tired, hungry, until the baggage-train, with the 
 tents and food, shall have come up, with no alternative in 
 the mean time but to lie shivering inside a grass^roofed 
 church, or to share the quarters of some farmer's family, 
 whose domestic arrangements resemble in every particular 
 
VII.] CHANGE. 93 
 
 those which Macaulay describes as prevailing among the 
 Scottish Highlanders a hundred years ago ; and, if finally 
 ■ — after vainly waiting for some days to see an eruption 
 which never takes place — you journey back to Reykjavik 
 under the same melancholy conditions, — it will not be un- 
 natural that, on returning to your native land you should 
 proclaim Iceland, with her Geysirs, to be a sham, a delu- 
 sion, and a snare ! 
 
 Fortune, however, seemed determined that of these bit- 
 ternesses we should not taste ; for the next morning, bright 
 and joyous overhead bent the blue unclouded heaven ; 
 while the plain lay gleaming at our feet in all the brillian- 
 cy of enamel. I was sorely tempted to linger another day 
 in the neighborhood ; but we have already spent more 
 time upon the Geysirs than I had counted upon, and it 
 will not do to remain in Iceland longer than the 15th, or 
 Winter will have begun to barricade the passes into his 
 Arctic dominions. My plan, on returning to Reykjavik, is 
 to send the schooner round to wait for us in a harbor on 
 the north coast of the island, while we ourselves strike 
 straight across the interior on horseback. 
 
 The scenery, I am told, is magnificent. On the way 
 we shall pass many a little nook, shut up among the hills, 
 that has been consecrated by some touching old-world 
 story ; and the manner of life among the northern inhabit- 
 ants is, I believe, more unchanged and characteristic than 
 that of any other of the islanders. Moreover, scarcely 
 any stranger has ever penetrated to any distance in this 
 direction ; and we shall have an opportunity of traversing 
 a slice of that tremendous desert — piled up for thirty thou- 
 sand square miles in disordered pyramids of ice and lava 
 over the centre of the country, and periodically devastated 
 by deluges of molten stone and boiling mud, or over- 
 whelmed with whirlwinds of intermingled snow and cin- 
 ders, — an unfinished corner of the universe, where the ele- 
 
94 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 
 
 ments of chaos are still allowed to rage with unbridled 
 fury. 
 
 Our last stage from Thingvalla back to Reykjavik was 
 got over very quickly, and seemed an infinitely shorter dis- 
 tance than when we first performed it. We met a number 
 of farmers returning to their homes from a kind of fair that 
 is annually held in the little metropolis ; and as I watched 
 the long caravan-like line of pack-horses and horsemen^ 
 wearily plodding over the stony waste in single file, I 
 found it less difficult to believe that these remote islanders 
 should be descended from Oriental forefathers. In fact, 
 one is constantly reminded of the East in Iceland. From 
 the earliest ages the Icelanders have been a people dwell- 
 ing in tents. In the time of the ancient Parliament, the 
 legislators, during the entire session, lay encamped in 
 movable booths around the place of meeting. Their do- 
 mestic polity is naturally patriarchal, and the flight of their 
 ancestors from Norway was a protest against the antago- 
 nistic principle of feudalism. No Arab could be prouder 
 of his courser than they are of their little ponies, or rev- 
 erence more deeply the sacred rights of hospitality ; while 
 the solemn salutation exchanged between two companies 
 of travellers, passing each other in the desert — as they in- 
 variably call the uninhabited part of the country — would 
 not have misbecome the stately courtesy of the most an- 
 cient worshippers of the sun. 
 
 Anything more multifarious than the landing of these 
 caravans we met returning to the inland districts — cannot 
 well be conceived ; deal boards, rope, kegs of brandy, 
 sacks of rye or wheaten flour, salt, soap, sugar, snuff, to- 
 bacco, coffee ; everything, in fact, which was necessary to 
 their domestic consumption during the ensuing winter. In 
 exchange for these commodities, which of course they are 
 obliged to get from Europe, the Icelanders export raw 
 wool, knitted stockings, mittens, cured cod, and fish oil, 
 
VII.] EA^ TERN HABITS OF THE ICELANDERS. 95 
 
 whale blubber, fox skins, eider-down, feathers, and Ice- 
 landic moss. During the last few years the exports of the 
 island have amounted to about 1,200,000 lbs. of wool and 
 500,000 pairs of stockings and mittens. Although Iceland 
 is one-fifth larger than Ireland, its population consists of 
 only about 60,000 persons, scattered along the habitable 
 ring which runs round between the central desert and the 
 sea ; of the whole area of 38,000 square miles it is calcu- 
 lated that not more than one-eighth part is occupied^ the 
 remaining 33,000 square miles consisting of naked moun- 
 tains of ice, or valleys desolated by lava or volcanic ashes. 
 Even Reykjavik itself cannot boast of more than 700 or 
 800 inhabitants. 
 
 During winter time the men are chiefly employed in 
 tending cattle, picking wool, manufacturing ropes, bridles, 
 saddles, and building boats. The fishing season com- 
 mences in spring j in 1853 there were as many as 3,500 
 boats engaged upon the water. As summer advances — ■ 
 turf-cutting and hay-making begins ; while the autumn 
 months are principally devoted to the repairing of their 
 houses, manuring the grass lands, and killing and curing 
 of sheep for exportation, as well as for their own use dur- 
 ing winter. The woman-kind of a family occupy them- 
 selves throughout the year in washing, carding, and spin- 
 ning wool, in knitting gloves and stockings, and in weav- 
 ing frieze and flannel for their own wear. 
 
 The ordinary food of a well-to-do Icelandic family con- 
 sists of dried fish, butter, sour whey kept till fermentation 
 takes place, curds and skier — a very peculiar cheese unlike 
 any I ever tasted, — a little mutton, and rye bread. As 
 might be expected, this meagre fare is not very conducive 
 to health ; scurvy, leprosy, elephantiasis, and all cutaneous 
 disorders, are very common, while the practice of mothers 
 to leave off nursing their children at the end of three 
 
96 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 
 
 days, feeding them with cows' milk instead, results in a 
 frightful mortality among the babies. 
 
 Land is held either in fee-simple, or let by the Crown 
 to tenants on what may almost be considered perpetual 
 leases. The rent is calculated partly on the number of 
 acres occupied, partly on the head of cattle the farm is fit 
 to support, and is paid in kind, either in fish or farm pro 
 duce. Tenants in easy circumstances generally employ 
 two or three laborers, who — in addition to their board and 
 lodging — receive from ten to twelve dollars a year of 
 wages. No property can be entailed, and if any one dies 
 intestate, what he leaves is distributed among his children 
 — in equal shares to the sons, in half shares to the daugh- 
 ters. 
 
 The public revenue arising from Crown lands, commer- 
 cial charges, and a small tax on the transference of prop- 
 erty, amounts to about 3,000/. / the expenditure for educa- 
 tion, officers' salaries (the Governor has about 400/. a 
 year), ecclesiastical establishments, etc., exceeds 6,000/. a 
 year ; so that the island is certainly not a self-supporting 
 institution. 
 
 The clergy are paid by tithes ; their stipends are ex- 
 ceedingly small, generally not averaging more than six or 
 seven pounds sterling per annum ; their chief dependence 
 being upon their farms. Like St. Dunstan, they are inva- 
 riably excellent blacksmiths. 
 
 As we approached Reykjavik, for the first time during 
 the whole journey we began to have some little trouble 
 with the relay of ponies in front. Whether it was that they 
 were tired, or that they had arrived in a district where they 
 had been accustomed to roam at large, I cannot tell ; but 
 every ten minutes, during the last six or seven miles, one 
 or the other of them kept starting aside into the rocky plain, 
 across which the narrow bridle-road was carried, and cost 
 us many a weary chase before we could drive them into the 
 
VI I.] REYKJAVIK. 97 
 
 track again. At last, though not till I had been violently 
 hugged, kissed, and nearly pulled off my horse by an en- 
 thusiastic and rather tipsy farmer, who mistook me for the 
 Prince, we galloped, about five o'clock^ triumphantly into 
 the town, without an accident having occurred to man or 
 horse during the whole course of the expedition — always 
 excepting one tremendous fall sustained by Wilson, It was 
 on the evening of the day we left the Geysirs. We were 
 all galloping in single file down the lava pathway, when 
 suddenly I heard a cry behind me, and then the noise as 
 of a descending avalanche. On turning round, behold ! 
 both Wilson and his pony lay stretched upon the ground, 
 the first some yards in advance of the other. The poor 
 fellow evidently thought he was killed ; for he neither spoke 
 nor stirred, but lay looking up at me with blank, beady 
 eyes as I approached to his assistance. On further in- 
 vestigation neither of the sufferers proved to be a bit the 
 worse. 
 
 The cook and the rest of the party, did not arrive till 
 about midnight ; but I make no doubt that when that able 
 and spirited individual did at length reascend the side of 
 the schooner, his cheek must have burned with pride at the 
 reflection, that during the short period of his absence on 
 shore he had added to his other accomplishments that of be- 
 coming a most finished cavalier. I do not mean by that to 
 imply that he was at all done. Although we had enjoyed our 
 trip so much, I was not sorry to find myself on board. The 
 descent again', after our gipsy life, into the coquettish little 
 cabin, with its books and dear home faces, quite penetra- 
 ted me with thatfeelino^ of snuo: content of which I believe 
 Englishmen alone are susceptible. 
 
 I have now to relate to you a most painful occurrence 
 which has taken place during my absence at the Geysirs ; 
 — no less a catastrophe, in fact, than a mutiny among my 
 hitherto most exemplary ship's company. I suppose they, 
 
 7 
 
98 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 
 
 too, had occasion to bear witness to the proverbial hospi- 
 tality of Iceland ; salt junk, and the innocuous cates which 
 generally compose ship-board rations, could never have 
 produced such an emergency. Suffice it to say, that 
 " Dyspepsia and her fatal train " having taken hold of them, 
 in a desperate hour they determined on a desperate deed, 
 — and rushing aft in a body, demanded of my faithful 
 steward, not only access to the penetralia of the absent 
 Doctor's cupboard, but that he himself should administer 
 to them whatever medicaments he could come by. In vain 
 Mr. Grant threw himself across the cabin-door. Remon- 
 strance was useless ; my horny-handed lambs were inexora- 
 ble — unless he acceded to their demands, they threatened 
 to report him when I returned ! The Doctor's sanctuary 
 was thrown open, and all its sweets — if such they may be 
 called — were rifled. A huge box of pills, the first that 
 came to hand— they happened to be calomel — -was served 
 out, share and share alike, with concomitant vials of wrath, 
 of rhubarb and senna; audit was not until the last drop of 
 castor oil had been carefully licked up that the marauders 
 suffered their unwilling accomplice to retire to the fast- 
 nesses of his pantry. 
 
 An avenging Nemesis, however, hovered over the viola- 
 ted shrine of Esculapius. By the time I returned the 
 exigencies of justice had been more than satisfied, and the 
 outrage already atoned for. The rebellious hands were 
 become most penitent stomachs ; and fresh from the Orien- 
 tal associations suggested by our last day's ride, I involun- 
 tarily dismissed the disconsolate culprits, with the Asiatic 
 form of condonation : " Mashallah, you have made your 
 faces white ! Go in peace ! " 
 
 During our expedition to the interior, the harbor of Reyk- 
 javik had become populous with new arrivals. First of all 
 there was my old friend, the '■'' Reim Hortense^'"' the Empe- 
 ror's yacht, a magnificent screw corvette of i,ioo tons. I 
 
VII.] «Z^ REINE HO R tense: 
 
 99 
 
 had last parted with her three years ago in the Baltic, after 
 she had towed me for eighty miles on our way from Bomar- 
 'sund to Stockholm. Then there were two English screw 
 steamers of about 700 tons each, taken up by the French 
 Government as tenders to the yacht ; not to mention a 
 Spanish brig, and one or two other foreigners, which, 
 together with the frigate, the barque, and the vessels we 
 had found here on our first arrival, made the usually de- 
 serted bay look quite lively. Until this year no steamers 
 had ever cockneyfied its secluded waters. 
 
 This morning, directly after breakfast, I went on board 
 the '''■ Reine Hortense'^ to pay my respects to Prince Napo- 
 leon ; and H. I. H. has just done me the honor of com- 
 ing to inspect the ^^ Foam.'" When I was first presented to 
 him at the Geysirs, he asked me what my plans might be ; 
 and on my mentioning my resolution of sailing to the 
 North, he most kindly proposed that I should come with 
 him West to Greenland instead. My anxiety, however, 
 to reach, if it were possible, Jan Mayen and Spitzbergen, 
 prevented my accepting this most tempting offer ; but in 
 the mean time, H. I. H. has, it seems, himself determined 
 to come to Jan Mayen, and he is now kind enough to say 
 that if I can get ready for a start by six o'clock to-morrow 
 morning, the ''^ Reine Hortense^^ shall take me in tov/. To 
 profit by this proposal would of course entail the giving 
 up my plan of riding across the interior of Iceland, which 
 I should be very loth to do j at the same time, the season 
 is so far advanced, the mischances of our first start from 
 England have thrown us so far behind in our programme, 
 that it would seem almost a pity to neglect such an oppor- 
 tunity of overrunning the time that has been lost ; and 
 after all, these Polar islands, which so few have visited, are 
 what I am chiefly bent on seeing. Before I close this letter 
 the thing will have been settled one way or another ; for I 
 am to have the honor of dining with the Prince this eve- 
 
I oo LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VII. 
 
 ning, and between this and then I shall have made up my 
 mind. After dinner there is to be a ball on board the 
 frigate, to which all the rank, fashion, and beauty of Rey- 
 kjavik have been invited. 
 
 3 A. M. 
 
 I give up seeing the rest of Iceland, and go North at 
 once. It has cost me a struggle to come to this conclusion, 
 but on the whole I think it will be better. Ten or fifteen 
 days of summer-time become very precious in these lati- 
 tudes, and are worth a sacrifice. At this moment we have 
 just brought up astern of the " Reiiie Hortense^^ and are get- 
 ting our hawsers bent, ready for a start in half an hour's 
 time. My next letter, please God, will be dated from Ham- 
 merfest. I suppose I shall be about fifteen or twenty days 
 getting there, but this will depend on the state of the ice 
 about Jan Mayen. If the anchorage is clear, I shall spend 
 a few days in examining the island, which by all accounts 
 would appear to be most curious. 
 
 I happened first to hear of its existence from a very in- 
 telligent whaling Captain I fell in with among the Shet- 
 lands four years ago. He was sailing home to Hull, after 
 fishing the Spitzbergen waters, and had sighted the huge 
 mountain which forms the northern extremity of Jan May- 
 en, on his way south. Luckily, the weather was fine while 
 he was passing, and the sketch he made of it at the time 
 so filled me with amazement, that I then determined, 
 if ever I got the chance, to go and see with my own eyes 
 so great a marvel. Imagine a spike of igneous rock (the 
 whole island is volcanic), shooting straight up out of the 
 sea to the height of 6,870 feet, not broad-based like a pyr- 
 amid, nor round-topped like a sugar-loaf, but, needle- 
 shaped, pointed like the spire of a church. If only my 
 Hull skipper were as good a draughtsman as he seemed to 
 be a seaman, we should now be on our way to one of the 
 
VIl. JAN mayen: loi 
 
 wonderii of the world. Most people here hold out rather 
 a doleful prospect, and say that, in the first place, it is 
 probable the whole island will be imprisoned within the 
 eternal fields of ice, that lie out for upwards of a hundred 
 and fifty miles along the eastern coast of Greenland; and 
 next, that if even the sea should be clear in its vicinity, 
 the fogs up there are so dense and constant that the chan- 
 ces are very much against our hitting the land. But the 
 fact of the last French man-of-war which sailed in that 
 direction never having returned, has made those seas need- 
 lessly unpopular at Reykjavik. 
 
 It was during one of these fogs that Captain Fotherby, 
 the original discoverer of Jan Mayen, stumbled upon it in 
 1614. While sailing southwards in a mist too thick to see 
 a ship's length off, he suddenly heard the noise of waters 
 breaking on a great shore ; and when the gigantic bases of 
 Mount Beerenberg gradually disclosed themselves, he 
 thought he had discovered some new continent. Since 
 then it has been often sighted by homeward-bound whalers, 
 but rarely landed upon. About the year 1633 the Dutch 
 Government, wishing to establish a settlement in the actual 
 neighborhood of the fishing-grounds, where the blubber 
 might be boiled down, and the spoils of each season trans- 
 ported home in the smallest bulk, — actually induced seven 
 seamen to volunteer remaining the whole winter on the 
 island.^ Huts were built for them, and having been fur- 
 nished with an ample supply of salt provisions, they were 
 
 I The names of the seven Dutch seamen who attempted to winter 
 in J an Mayen's Island were : 
 
 Outgert Jacobson, of Grootenbrook, their commander. 
 
 Adrian Martin Carman, of Schiedam, clerk. 
 
 Thauniss Thaunissen, of Schermehem, cook. 
 
 Dick Peterson, of Veenhuyse. 
 
 Peter Peterson, of Harlem. 
 
 Sebastian Gyse, of Defts-Haven. 
 
 Gerard Beautin, of Bruges. 
 
1 02 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VI I . 
 
 left to resolve the problem, as to whether or no human 
 beings could support the severities of the climate. Stand- 
 ing on the shore, these seven men saw their comrades' part- 
 ing sails smk down beneath the sun, — then watched the 
 sun sink, as had sunk the sails ; — but extracts from their 
 own simple narrative are the most touching record I can 
 give you of their fate : — 
 
 "The 26th of August, our fleet set sail for Holland 
 with a strong north-east wind, and a hollow sea, which 
 continued all that night. The 28th, the wind the same ; 
 it began to snow very hard ; we then shared half a pound 
 of tobacco betwixt us, which was to be our allowance for 
 a week. Towards evening we went about together, to see 
 whether we could discover anything worth our observation ; 
 but met with nothing." And so on for many a weary day 
 of sleet and storm. 
 
 On the 8th of September they "were frightened by a 
 noise of something falling to the ground," — probably some 
 volcanic disturbance. A month later, it becomes so cold 
 that their linen, after a moment's exposure to the air be- 
 com.es frozen like a board.^ Huge fleets of ice beleague- 
 red the island, the sun disappears, and they spend most of 
 their time in " rehearsing to one another the adventures 
 that had befallen them both by sea and land." On the 
 1 2th of December they kill a bear, having already begun 
 to feel the effects of a salt diet. At last comes New 
 Year's Day, 1636. "After having wished each other a 
 
 I The climate, however, does not appear to have been then so in- 
 clement in these latitudes as it has since become. A similar deterior- 
 ation in the temperature, both of Spitzbergen and Greenland, has also 
 been observed. In Iceland we have undoubted evidence of corn hav- 
 ing been formerly grown, as well as of the existence of timber of con- 
 siderable size, though now it can scarcely produce a cabbage, or a 
 stunted shrub of birch. M. Babinet, of the French Institute, goes a 
 little too far when he says, in the Journal des D€bats of the 30th De- 
 cember, 1856, that for many years Jan Mayen has been inaccessible. 
 
VII.] THE COLONISTS OF JAN MAYEN: 103 
 
 happy new year, and success in our enterprise, we went to 
 prayers, to disburthen our hearts before God." On the 
 25 th of February (the very day on whicli Wallenstein was 
 murdered) the sun reappeared. By the 22d of March 
 scurvy had already declared itself : " For want of refresh- 
 ments we began to be very heartless, and so afflicted that 
 our legs are scarce able to bear us." On the 3d of April, 
 " there being no more than two of us in. health, we killed 
 for them the only two pullets we had left ; and they fed 
 pretty heartily upon them, in hopes it might prove a means 
 to recover part of their strength. We were sorry we had 
 not a dozen more for their sake." On Easter Day, Adrian 
 Carman, of Schiedam, their clerk, dies. " The Lord have 
 mercy upon his soul, and upon us all, we being very sick." 
 During the next few days they seem all to have got rapidly 
 worse ; one only is strong enough to move about. He has 
 learnt writing from his comrades since coming to the island ; 
 and it is he who concludes the melancholy story. " The 
 23d ("April), the wind blew from the same corner, with 
 small rain. We were by this time reduced to a very de- 
 plorable state, there being none of them all, except my- 
 self, that were able to help themselves, much less one an- 
 other, so that the whole burden lay upon my shoulders, — 
 and I perform my duty as well as I am able, as long as 
 God pleases to give me strength. I am just now a-going 
 to help our commander out of his cabin, at his request, 
 because he imagined by this change to ease his pain, he 
 then struggling with death." For seven days this gallant 
 fellow goes on " striving to do his duty ; " that is to say, 
 making entries in the journal as to the state of the weather, 
 that being the principal object their employers had in view 
 when they left them on the island ; but on the 30th of 
 April his strength too gave way, and his failing hand could 
 do no more than trace an incompleted sentence on the 
 page. 
 
1 04 LE TTERS FR OM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VI I. 
 
 Meanwhile succor and reward are on their way toward 
 the forlorn garrison. On the 4th of June, up again above 
 the horizon rise the sails of the Zealand fleet ; but no glad 
 faces came forth to greet the boats as they pull towards 
 the shore ; and when their comrades search for those they 
 had hoped to find alive and well, — lo ! each lies dead in 
 his own hut, — one with an open Prayer-book by his side ; 
 another with his hand stretched out towards the ointment 
 he had used for his stiffened joints ; and the last survivor, 
 with the unfinished journal still lying by his side. 
 
 The most recent recorded landing on the island was 
 effected twenty-two years ago, by the brave and pious Cap- 
 tain, now Dr. Scoresby,^ on his return from a whaling 
 cruise. He had seen the mountain of Beerenberg one 
 hundred miles off, and, on approaching, found the coast 
 quite clear of ice. According to his survey and observa- 
 tions, Jan Mayen is about sixteen miles long, by four wide ; 
 but 1 hope soon, on my own authority, to be able to tell 
 you more about it. 
 
 Certainly, this our last evening spent in Iceland will 
 not have been the least joyous of our stay. The dinner 
 on board the " Reine Hortense " was very pleasant. I re- 
 newed acquaintance with some of ray old Baltic friends, 
 and was presented to two or three of the Prince's staff 
 who did not accompany the expedition to the Geysirs ; 
 among others, to the Due d'Abrantes, Marshal Junot's 
 son. On sitting down to table, I found myself betw^een 
 H.I.H. and Monsieur de Saulcy, member of the French 
 Institute, who made that famous expedition to the Dead 
 Sea, and is one of the gayest, pleasantest persons I have 
 ever met. Of course there was a great deal of laughing 
 and talking, as well as much speculation with regard to the 
 costume of the Icelandic ladies we were to see at the ball. 
 
 I I regret to be obliged to subjoin that Pr. Scoresby has died since 
 the above was written. 
 
VII] 
 
 ICELANDIC LADIES. 
 
 It appears that the dove-cots of Reykjavik have been a 
 good deal fluttered by an announcement emanating from 
 the gallant Captain of the " Artemise " that his fair guests 
 would be expected to come in low dresses ; for it would 
 seem that the practice of showing their ivory shoulders is, 
 as yet, an idea as shocking to the pretty ladies of this 
 country as waltzes was to our grandmothers. Nay, there 
 
 AN ICELANDIC LADY. 
 
 was not even to be found a native milliner equal to the 
 task of marking out that mysterious line which divides the 
 prudish from the improper ; so that the Collet-monte fac- 
 tion have been in despair. As it turned out, their anxiety 
 on this head was unnecessary ; for we found, on entering 
 the ball-room, that, with the natural refinement which char- 
 
io6 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 
 
 acterizes this noble people, our bright- eyed partners, as if 
 by inspiration, had hit off the exact sweep from shoulder 
 to shoulder, at which — after those many oscillations, up 
 and down, which the female corsage has undergone since 
 the time of the first Director — good taste has finally ar- 
 rested it. 
 
 I happened to be particularly interested in the above 
 important question ; for up to that moment I had always 
 been haunted by a horrid paragraph I had met with some- 
 where in an Icelandic book of travels, to the effect that it 
 was the practice of Icelandic women, from early childhood, 
 to flatten down their bosoms as much as possible. This 
 fact, for the honor of the island, I am now in a position to 
 deny; and I here declare that, as far as I had the indis- 
 cretion to observe, those maligned ladies appeared to me 
 as buxom in form as any rosy English girl I have ever 
 seen. 
 
 It was nearly nine o'clock before we adjourned from 
 the '"'■ Reine Hortensel' to the ball. Already, for some time 
 past, boats full of gay dresses had been passing under the 
 corvette's stern on their M'ay to the " Artemise^^^ lox^king 
 like flower-beds that had put to sea, — though they certainly 
 could no longer be called 2. parterre ; — and by the time we 
 ourselves mounted her lofty sides, a mingled stream of 
 music, light, and silver laughter, was pouring out of every 
 port-hole. The ball-room was very prettily arranged. The 
 upper deck had been closed in with a lofty roof of canvas, 
 from which hung suspended glittering lustres, formed by bay- 
 onets with their points collected into an inverted pyramid, 
 and the butt-ends serving as sockets for the tapers. Every 
 wall was gay with flags, — the frigate's frowning armament 
 all hid or turned to ladies uses : 82 pounders became sofas 
 — boarding-pikes, balustrades — pistols, candlesticks — the 
 brass carronades set on end, pillarwise, their brawling 
 mouths stopped with nosegays ; while portraits of the Em 
 
VII.] FEARFUL SUGGESTIONS. 107 
 
 peror and the Empress, busts, colo:s draped with Parisian 
 cunning, gave to the scene an appearance of festivity that 
 looked quite fairy-like in so sombre a region. As for our 
 gallant host, I never saw such spirits ; he is a fine old grey- 
 headed blow-hard of fifty odd, talking English like a native, 
 and combining the frank open-hearted cordiality of a sailor 
 with that graceful winning gaiety peculiar to Frenchmen. 
 I never saw anything more perfect than the kind, almost 
 fatherly, courtesy with which he welcomed each blooming 
 bevy of maidens that trooped up his ship's side. About 
 two o'clock we had supper on the main deck. I had the 
 honor of taking down Miss Thora, of Bessestad ; and 
 somehow — this time, I no longer found myself wandering 
 back in search of the pale face of the old-world Thora, 
 being, I suppose, sufficiently occupied by the soft, gentle 
 eyes of the one beside me. With the other young ladies 
 I did not make much acquaintance, as I experienced 
 a difficulty in finding befitting remarks on the occasion 
 of being presented to them. Once or twice, indeed, I 
 hazarded, through their fathers, some little compliment- 
 ary observations in Latin ; but I cannot say that I found 
 that language lend itself readily to the gallantries of the 
 ball-room. After supper dancing recommenced, and the 
 hilarity of the evening reached its highest pitch when half 
 a dozen sailors, dressed in turbans made of flags (one of 
 them a lady with the face of the tragic muse), came for- 
 ward and danced the cancan, with a gravity and decorum 
 that would have greatly edified what Gavarni calls '^ iapu- 
 deiirmunicipale'^ 
 
 At 3 o'clock A. M. I returned on board the schooner, 
 and we are all now very busy in making final preparations 
 for departure. Fitz is rearranging his apothecary's shop. 
 Sigurdr is writing letters. The last strains of music have 
 ceased on board the ^^ Artemise ; " the sun is already high in 
 the heavens ; the flower beds are returning on shore, — a 
 
io8 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VII. 
 
 little draggled perhaps, as if just pelted by a thunder- 
 storm ; the " Reine Horteiise " his got her steam up, and 
 the real, serious part of our voyage is about to begin. 
 
 I feel that my description has not half done justice to 
 the wonders of this interesting island ; but 1 can refer you 
 to your friend Sir Henry Holland for further details ; he 
 paid a visit to Iceland in 1810, with Sir G. Mackenzie, and 
 made himself thoroughly acquainted with its historical and 
 scientific associations. 
 
 CONCLUDING ACT. 
 
 Scene. R. V. S. " Foam " ; aster7t of the " Reine Hortense.''^ 
 
 DRAMATIS PERSON.^. 
 
 Voice of French Captain, Commanding " R. H." 
 
 Lord D. 
 
 Doctor. 
 
 Wilson. 
 
 Voice of French Captain. — " Nous partons." 
 Lord D .— " All ready, Sir ! " 
 
 Wilson to Doctor (sotto voce^. — " Sir ! " 
 
 Doctor.—'' Eh ? " 
 
 Wilson. — " Do you know, Sir ? " 
 Z>^^/^r.— "What?" 
 
 Wilson. — " Oh, nothing. Sir ; — only we're going to the 
 hicy regions, Sir, ain't we ? Well, I've just seen that ere 
 brig as is come from there. Sir, and they say there's a pre- 
 cious lot of ice this year ! {Pause?) Do you know, Sir, the 
 skipper showed me the bows of his vessel. Sir ? She's 
 got seven feet of solid timber in her for'ard : we've only 
 two inches. Sir ! " {Dives below.) 
 
 Voice of French Captain {with a slight accent). — "Are 
 you ready ? " 
 
 Lord D -. — " Ay, ay, Sir ! Up anchor 1 " 
 
LETTER VIII. 
 
 START FROM REYKJAVIK SNAEFELL THE LADY OF f RODA 
 
 ^A BERSERK TRAGEDY THE CHAMPION OF BREIDA^'IK — ■ 
 
 ONUNDER FIORD THE LAST NIGHT CROSSING THE ARC- 
 TIC CIRCLE FETE ON BOARD THE " REINE HORTENSE " 
 
 LE PERE ARCTIQUE WE FALL IN WITH THE ICE — THE 
 
 " SAXON " DISAPPEARS — MIST — A PARTING IN A LONELY 
 SPOT ^JAN MAYEN — MOUNT BEERENBERG AN UNPLEAS- 
 ANT POSITION SHIFT OF WIND AND EXTRICATION " TO 
 
 NORROWAY OVER THE FAEM " A NASTY COAST — HAM- 
 
 MERFEST. 
 
 Hammerfest, July. 
 
 Back in Europe again, — within reach of posts ! The 
 glad sun shining, the soft winds blowing, and roses on the 
 cabin table, — as if 'the region of fog and ice we have just 
 fled forth from were indeed the dream-land these summer 
 sights would make it seem. I cannot tell you how gay 
 and joyous it all appears to us, fresh from a climate that 
 would not have been unworthy of Dante's Inferno. And 
 yet — had it been twice as bad, what we have seen would 
 have more than repaid us, though it has been no child's 
 play to get to see it. 
 
 But I must begin where I left off in my last letter, — 
 just, I think, as we were getting under way, to be towed 
 by the " Reine Hortense " out of Reykjavik Harbor. Hav- 
 ing been up all night, — as soon as we were well clear of 
 the land, and that it was evident the towing business was 
 
no 
 
 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. 
 
 [VIII. 
 
 doing well — I turned in for a few hours. When I came 
 on deck again we had crossed the Faxe Fiord on our way 
 north, and were sweeping round the base of Snaefell — an 
 extinct volcano which rises from the sea in an icy cone to 
 the height of 5,000 feet, and grimly looks across to Green- 
 land. The day was beautiful ; the mountain's summit 
 beamed down upon us in unclouded splendor, and every- 
 thing seemed to promise an uninterrupted view of the west 
 
 REMAINS OF BASALTIC DYKES. 
 
 coast of Iceland, along whose rugged cliffs few mariners 
 have ever sailed. Indeed, until within these last few years, 
 the passage, I believe, was altogether impracticable, in 
 consequence of the continuous fields of ice which used to 
 drift down the narrow channel between the frozen conti- 
 nent and the northern extremity of the island. Lately, 
 some great change seems to have taken place in the lie of 
 the Greenland ice ; and during the cummer-time you can 
 
VIII.] THE TUMULTUOUS ONE. Ill 
 
 pass through, though late in the year a solid belt binds the 
 two shores together. 
 
 But in a historical and scientific point of view, the 
 whole country lying about the basanite roots of Snaefell is 
 most interesting. At the feet of its southern slopes are to 
 be seen wonderful ranges of columnar basalt, prismatic 
 caverns, ancient craters, and specimens of almost every 
 formation that can result from the agency of subterranean 
 fires ; while each glen, and bay, and headland, in the 
 neighborhood, teems with traditionary lore. On the north- 
 western side of the mountain stretches the famous Eyrbig- 
 gja district, the most classic ground in Iceland, with the 
 towns, or rather farmsteads, of Froda, Helgafell, and 
 Biarnarhaf. 
 
 This last place was the scene of one of the most curious 
 and characteristic Sagas to be found in the whole catalogue 
 of Icelandic chronicles. 
 
 In the da3^s when the same Jarl Hakon I have already 
 mentioned lorded it over Norway, an Icelander of the 
 name of Vermund, who had come to pay his court to the 
 lord of Lade, took a violent wish to engage in his own ser- 
 vice a couple of gigantic Berserks,^ named Halli and Leik- 
 ner, whom the Jarl had retained about his person — fancying 
 that two champions of such great strength and prowess would 
 much add to his consequence on returning home. In vain 
 the Jarl warned him that personages of that description were 
 wont to give trouble and become unruly, — -nothing would 
 serve but he must needs carry them away with him ; nay, if 
 they would but come, they might ask as wages any boon 
 
 I Berserk, /. e., bare sack. The berserks seem to have been a de- 
 scription of athletes who were in the habit of stimulating their nervous 
 energies by the use of some intoxicating drug, which rendered them 
 capable of feats of extraordinary strength and daring. The Berserker 
 gang must have been something very like the Malay custom of running 
 amuck. Their moments of excitement were followed by periods of 
 great exhaustion. 
 
T 1 2 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VIII. 
 
 which might be in his power to grant. The bargain accord 
 ingly was made ; but on arriving in Iceland, the first thing 
 Ilalli took into liis head to require was a wife, who should 
 be rich, nobly born, and beautiful. As such a request was 
 difficult to comply with, Vermund, who was noted for being 
 a man of gentle disposition, determined to turn his trouble- 
 some retainers over to his brother, Arngrim Styr. /. e.^ the 
 Stirring or Tumultuous One, — as being a likelier man than 
 himself to know how to keep them in order. 
 
 Arngrim happened to have a beautiful daughter, named 
 Asdisa, with whom the inflammable Berserk of course fell 
 in love. Not daring openly to refuse him, Arngrim told his 
 would-be son-in-law, that before complying with his suit, he 
 must consult his friends, and posted off to Helgafell, where 
 dwelt the Pagan Pontiff Snorre. The result of this confer- 
 ence was an agreement on the part of Styr to give his 
 daughter to the Berserk, provided he and his brother would 
 cut a road through the lava rocks of Biarnarhaf. Halli and 
 Leikner immediately set about executing this prodigious 
 task j while the scornful Asdisa, arrayed in her most splendid 
 attire, came sweeping past in silence, as if to mock their toil. 
 The poetical reproaches addressed to the young lady on this 
 occasion by her sturdy admirer and his mate are still extant. 
 In the mean time, the other servants of the crafty Arngrim 
 had constructed a subterranean bath, so contrived that at a 
 moment's notice it could be flooded with boiling water. 
 Their task at last concluded, the two Berserks returned 
 home to claim their reward ; but Arngrim Styr, as if in 
 the exuberance of his affection, proposed that they should 
 first refresh themselves in the new bath. No sooner had 
 they descended into it, that Arngrim shut down the trap- 
 door, and having ordered a newly-stripped bullock's hide 
 to be stretched before the entrance, gave the signal for the 
 boiling water to be turned on. Fearful were the struggles 
 of the scalded giants ; Halli, indeed, succeeded in bursting 
 
VIII.] TffUREBS LOVER. 113 
 
 up the door ; but his foot slipped on the bloody bull's hide 
 and Arngrim stabbed him to the heart. His brother was 
 then easily forced back into the seething water. 
 
 The effusion composed by the Tumultuous One on the 
 occasion of this exploit is also extant, and does not yield in 
 poetical merit to those which I have already mentioned as 
 having emanated from his victims. 
 
 As soon as the Pontiff Snorre heard of the result of Arn- 
 grim Styr's stratagem, he came over and married the Lady 
 Asdisa. Traces of the road made by the unhappy cham- 
 pions can yet be detected at Biarnarhaf, and tradition still 
 identifies the grave of the Berserks. 
 
 Connected with this same Pontiff Snorre is another of 
 those mysterious notices of a great land in the western ocean 
 which we find in the ancient chronicles, so interwoven with 
 narrative we know to be true, as to make it impossible not 
 to attach a certain amount of credit to them. This particu- 
 lar story is the more interesting as its denouement^ abruptly 
 left in the blankest mystery by one Saga, is incidentally re- 
 vealed to us in the course of another, relating to events 
 wdth which the first had no connection.^ 
 
 It seems that Snorre had a beautiful sister named Thured 
 of Froda, with whom a certain gallant gentleman — called 
 Bjorn, the son of Astrand — fell head and ears in love. Un- 
 fortunately, a rich rival appears in the field ; and though 
 she had given her heart to Bjorn, Snorre — who, we have 
 already seen, was a prudent man — insisted upon her giving 
 her hand to his rival. Disgusted by such treatment, Bjorn 
 sails away to the coasts of the Baltic, and joins a famous 
 company of sea-rovers, called the Jomsburg Vikings. In 
 this- worthy society he so distinguishes himself by his valor 
 and daring that he obtains the title of the Champion of 
 
 I From internal evidence it is certain that the chronicle which con- 
 tains these Sagas must have been written about the beginning of the 
 thirteenth century. 
 
 8 
 
114 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VII I. 
 
 Breidavik. After many doughty deeds, done by sea and 
 land, he at last returns, loaded with wealth and honors, to 
 his native country. 
 
 In the summer-time of the year 999, soon after his arrival 
 was held a great fair at Froda, whither all the merchants, 
 " clad in colored garments," congregated from the adjacent 
 country. Thither came also Bjorn's old love, the Lady of 
 Froda ; " and Bjorn went up and spoke to her, and it was 
 thought likely their talk would last long since they for such a 
 length of time not seen each other." But to this renewal 
 of old acquaintance both the lady's husband and her 
 brother very much objected ; and " it seemed to Snorre 
 that it would be a good plan to kill Bjorn." So, about the 
 time of hay-making, off he rides, with some retainers, to 
 his victim's home, having fully instructed one of them how 
 to deal the first blow. Bjorn was in the home-field (tun), 
 mending his sledge, when the cavalcade appeared in sight ; 
 and, guessing what motive had inspired the visit, went 
 straight up to Snorre, who rode in front, " in a blue cloak,'* 
 and held the knife with which he had been working in such 
 a position as to be able to stab the Pontiff to the heart, 
 should his followers attempt to lift their hands against him- 
 self. Comprehending the position of affairs, Snorre's 
 friends kept quiet. " Bjorn then asked the news." Snorre 
 confesses that he had intended to kill him ; but adds, 
 " Thou tookest such a lucky grip of me at our meeting, 
 that thou must have peace this time, however it may have 
 been determined before." The conversation is concluded 
 by an agreement on the part of Bjorn to leave the country 
 as he feels it impossible to abstain from paying visits 
 to Thured as long as he remains in the neighborhood. 
 Having manned a ship, Bjorn put to sea in the summer-time. 
 " When they sailed away, a north-east wind was blowing, 
 which wind lasted long during that summer ; but of this 
 ship was nothing heard since this long time." And so we 
 
VII I.] CELTIC TRACES. 115 
 
 conclude it is all over with the poor Champion of Breidavik ! 
 Not a bit of it. He turns up, thirty years afterwards, safe 
 and sound, in the uttermost parts of the earth. 
 
 In the year 1029, a certain Icelander, named Gudlief, 
 undertakes a voyage to Limerick, in Ireland. On his return 
 home, he is driven out of his course by north-east winds. 
 Heaven knows where. After drifting for many days to the 
 west-ward, he at last falls in with land. On approaching 
 the beach, a great crowd of people came down to meet the 
 strangers, apparently with no friendly intentions. Shortly 
 afterwards, a tall and venerable chieftain makes his appear- 
 ance and, to Gudlief's great astonishment, addresses him 
 in Icelandic. Having entertained the weary mariners very 
 honorably, and supplied them with provisions, the old man 
 bids them speed back to Iceland, as it would be unsafe for 
 them to remain where they were. His own name he refused 
 to tell ; but having learnt that Gudlief comes from the 
 neighborhood of Snaefell, he puts into his hands a sword 
 and a ring. The ring is to be given to Thured of Froda ; 
 the sword to her son Kjartan. When Gudlief asks by whom 
 he is to say the gifts are sent, the ancient chieftain an- 
 swers, " Say they come from one who was a better friend 
 of the Lady of Froda than of her brother Snorre of Helga- 
 fell." Wherefore it is conjectured that this man was Bjorn 
 the son of Astrand, Champion of Breidavik. 
 
 After this, Madam, I hope I shall never hear you depre- 
 ciate the constancy of men. Thured had better have mar- 
 ried Bjorn after all ! 
 
 I forgot to mention that when Gudlief landed on the 
 strange coast, it seemed to him that the inhabitants spoke 
 Irish. Now, there are many antiquaries inclined to believe 
 in the former existence of an Irish colony to the southw^ard 
 of the Vinland of the Northmen. Scattered through the 
 Sagas are several notices of a distant country in the West, 
 which is called Ireland ed Mekla — Great Ireland, or the 
 
1 16 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VIII. 
 
 White Man's land. When Pizarro penetrated into the 
 heart of Mexico, a tradition already existed of the previous 
 arrival of white men from the East. Among the Shaw- 
 nasee Indians a story is still preserved of Florida having 
 been once inhabited by white men, who used iron instru- 
 ments. In 1658, Sir Erland the Priest had in his posses- 
 sion a chart, even then thought ancient, of " The Land of 
 the White Men, or Hibernia Major, situated opposite Vin- 
 land the Good ; " and Gaelic philologists pretend to trace 
 a remarkable affinity between many of the American-Indian 
 dialects and the ancient Celtic. 
 
 But to return to the *' Foa?n'' After passing the cape, 
 away we went across the spacious Brieda Fiord, at the rate 
 of nine or ten knots an hour, reeling and bounding at the 
 heels of the steamer, which seemed scarcely to feel how 
 uneven was the surface across which we were speeding. 
 Down dropped Snaefell beneath the sea, and dim before us, 
 clad in evening haze, rose the shadowy steeps of Bardes- 
 trand. The north-west division of Iceland consists of one 
 huge peninsula, spread out upon the sea like a human hand, 
 the fingers just reaching over the Arctic circle ; while up 
 between them run the gloomy fiords, sometimes to the length 
 of twenty, thirty, and even forty miles. Anything more 
 grand and mysterious than the appearance of their solemn 
 portals, as we passed across from bluff to bluff, it is impos- 
 sible to conceive. Each might have served as a separate 
 entrance to some poet's hell — so drear and fatal seemed the 
 vista one's eye just caught receding between the endless 
 ranks of precipice and pyramid. 
 
 There is something, moreover, particularly mystical in 
 the effect of the grey, dreamy atmosphere of an arctic night 
 through whose uncertain medium mountain and headland 
 loom as impalpable as the frontiers of a demon world ; and 
 as I kept gazing at the glimmering peaks, and monstrous 
 crags, and shattered stratifications, heaped up along the coast 
 
VIII.] WALHALLA. 
 
 "7 
 
 in Cyclopean disorder, I understood how natural it was that 
 the Scandinavian mythology, of whose mysteries the Ice- 
 landers were ever the natural guardians and interpreters, 
 should have assumed that broad, massive simplicity which 
 is its most beautiful characteristic. Amid the rugged 
 features of such a country the refinements of Paganism 
 . would have been dwarfed into insignificance. How out of 
 place would seem a Jove with his beard in ringlets — a trim 
 AjDoUo — a sleek Bacchus — an ambrosial Venus — a slim 
 Diana, and all their attendant groups of Oreads and Cupids 
 — amid the ocean mists, and icebound torrents,' the flame- 
 scarred mountains, and four months' night — of a land which 
 the opposing forces of heat and cold have selected for a 
 battle-field ! 
 
 The undeveloped reasoning faculty is prone to attach an 
 undue value and meaning to the forms of things, and the 
 infancy of a nation's mind is always more ready to worship 
 the 7nanifestations of a Power, than to look beyond them 
 for a cause. Was it not natural then that these northerners, 
 dwelling in daily communion with this grand Nature, should 
 fancy they could perceive a mysterious and independent 
 energy in her operations ; and at last come to confound the 
 moral contest man feels within him, with the physical strife 
 he finds around him ; to see in the returning sun — fostering 
 into renewed existence the winter-stifled world — even more 
 than a type of that spiritual consciousness which alone can 
 make the dead heart stir ; to discover even more than an 
 analogy between the reign of cold, darkness, and desolation 
 and the still blanker ruin of a sin perverted soul t But in 
 that iron clime, amid such awful associations, the conflict 
 going on was too terrible — the contending powers too visi- 
 bly in presence of each other, for the practical, conscien- 
 tious Norse mind to be content with the puny godships of a 
 Roman Olympus, Nectar, Sensuality, and Inextinguishable 
 Laughter were elements of felicity too mean for the nobler 
 
li8 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VIII. 
 
 atmosphere of their Walhalla ; and to those active temper- 
 aments and healthy minds, — invigorated and solemnized 
 by the massive mould of the scenery around them, — 
 Strength, Courage, Endurance, and above all Self-sacrifice 
 naturally seemed more essential attributes of divinity than 
 mere elegance and beauty. And we must remember that 
 whilst the vigorous imagination of the north was delighting 
 itself in creating a stately dreamland, where it strove to 
 blend, in a grand world-picture — always harmonious, though 
 not always consistent — the influences which sustain both 
 the physical and moral system of its universe, an under- 
 current of sober Gothic common sense induced it — as a 
 kind of protest against the too material interpretation of 
 the symbolism it had employed — to wind up its religious 
 scheme by sweeping into the chaos of oblivion all the glori- 
 ous fabric it had evoked, and proclaiming — in the place 
 of the transient gods and perishable heaven of its Asgaard 
 — that One undivided Deity, at whose approach the pillars 
 of Walhalla were to fall, and Odin and his peers to perish, 
 with all the subtle machinery of their existence ; while man 
 — himself immortal — was summoned to receive at the hands 
 of the Eteructi \11-Father the sentenpe that waited upon his 
 deeds. It is true this purer system belonged only to the 
 early ages. As in the case of every false religion, the sym- 
 bolism of the Scandinavian mythology lost with each suc- 
 ceeding generation something of its transparency, and at 
 last degenerated into a gross superstition. But traces still 
 remained, even down to the times of Christian ascendency, 
 of the deep, philosophical spirit in which it had been origi- 
 nally conceived ; and through its homely imagery there ran 
 a vein of tender humor, such as still characterizes the 
 warm-hearted, laughter-loving northern races. Of this mix- 
 ture of philosophy and fun, the following story is no bad 
 specimen. ^ 
 
 I The story of Thor's journey has been translated from the Edda 
 bpth by the Howitts and Mr. Thoroe. 
 
VIIL] THOR'S JOURNEY TO JOTUNHEIM. T 19 
 
 Once on a time the two GEsir, Thor, the Thunder god, 
 and his brother Lopt, attended by a servant, determined to 
 ^o eastward to Jotunheim, the land of the giants, in search 
 of adventures. Crossing over a great water, they came to 
 a desolate plain, at whose further end, tossing and waving 
 in the wind, rose the tree tops of a great forest. After 
 journeying for many hours along its dusty labyrinths, they 
 began to be anxious about a resting-place for the night 
 " At last, Lopt perceived a very spacious house, on one side 
 of which was an entrance, as wide as the house itself ; and 
 there they took up their night-quarters. At midnight they 
 perceived a great earthquake j the ground reeled under them 
 and the house shook. 
 
 " Then up rose Thor and called to his companions. They 
 sought about, and found a side building to the right, into 
 which they went Thor placed himself at the door, the rest 
 went and sat down further in, and were very much afraid. 
 
 " Thor kept his hammer in his hand, ready to defend 
 them. Then they heard a terrible noise and roaring. As 
 it began to dawn, Thor went out, and saw a man lying in 
 the wood not far from them j he was by no means small, 
 and he slept and snored loudly. Then Thor understood 
 what the noise was which they heard in the night. He 
 buckled on his belt of power, by which he increased his 
 divine strength. At the same instant the man awoke, and 
 rose up. It is said that Thor was so much astonished that 
 he did not dare to slay him with his hammer, but inquired 
 his name. He called himself Skrymer. ' Thy name,' said 
 he, ' I need not ask, for I know that thou art Asar-Thor. 
 But what hast thou done with my glove ? ' 
 
 " Skrymer stooped and took up his glove, and Thor 
 saw that it was the house in which they had passed the 
 night, and that the out-building was the thumb." 
 
 Here follow incidents which do not differ widely from 
 certain passages in the history of Jack the Giant Killer. 
 Thor makes three several attempts to knock out the easy- 
 
120 LE TTERS FROM HIGFI LA TITUDES. [VIII. 
 
 going giant's brains during a slumber, in which he is rep- 
 resented as " snoring outrageously," — and after each blow 
 of the Thunder god's hammer, Skrymer merely wakes up 
 — strokes his beard — and complains of feeling some tri- 
 fling inconvenience, such as a dropped acorn on his head, 
 a fallen leaf, or a little moss shaken from the boughs. 
 Finally, he takes leave of them, — points out the way to 
 Utgard Loke's palace, advises them not to give themselves* 
 airs at his court, — as unbecoming "such little fellows" as 
 they were, and disappears in the wood ; " and " — as the 
 old chronicler slyly adds — " it is not said whether the CEsir 
 wished ever to see him again." 
 
 They then journeyed on till noon ; till they came to a 
 vast palace, where a multitude of men, of whom the great- 
 er number were immensely large, sat on two benches. 
 " After this they advanced into the presence of the king, 
 Utgard Loke, and saluted him. He scarcely deigned to 
 give a look, and said smiling : ' It is late to inquire after 
 true tidings from a great distance ; but is it not Thor that 
 I see ? Yet you are really bigger than I imagined. What 
 are the exploits that you can perform ? For no one is tol- 
 erated amongst us who cannot distinguish himself by some 
 art or accomplishment.' 
 
 " ' Then,' said Lopt, ' I understand an art of which T 
 am prepared to give proof ; and that is, that no one here 
 can dispose of his food as I can.' Then answered Utgard 
 Loke : ' Truly this is an art, if thou canst achieve it ; 
 which we will now see.' He called from the bench a man 
 named Loge to contend with Lopt. They set a trough in 
 the middle of the hall, filled with meat. Lopt placed him- 
 self at one end and Loge at the other. Both ate the best 
 they could, and they met in the middle of the trough. 
 Lopt had picked the meat from the bones, but Loge had 
 eaten meat, bones, and trough altogether. All agreed Lopt 
 was beaten. Then asked Utgard Loke what art the young 
 
VIIL] THORNS JOURNEY TO JOTUNHEIM. I2i 
 
 man (Thor's attendant) understood ? Thjalfe answered, 
 that he would run a race with any one that Utgard Loke 
 would appoint. There was a very good race ground on a 
 level field. Utgard Loke called a young man named 
 Huge, and bade him run with Thjalfe. Thjalfe runs his 
 best, at three several attempts — according to received 
 Saga customs, — h\x\ is of course beaten in the race. 
 
 " Then i^sked Utgard Loke of Thor, what were the 
 feats that he v/ould attempt corresponding to the fame that 
 went abroad of him ? Thor answered that he thought he 
 could beat any one at drinking. Utgard Loke said, ' Very 
 good ; ' and bade his cup-bearer bring out the horn from 
 which his courtiers were accustomed to drink. Immedi- 
 ately appeared the cup-bearer, and placed the horn in 
 Thor's hand. Utgard Loke then said, ' that to empty that 
 horn at one pull was well done ; some drained it at twice ; 
 but that he was a wretched drinker who could Uvjt finish it 
 at the third draught.' Thor looked at the horn, and 
 thought that it was not large, though it was tolerably long. 
 He was very thirsty, lifted it to his mouth, and was very 
 happy at the thought of so good a draught. When he 
 could drink no more, he took the horn from his mouth, 
 and saw, to his astonishment, that there was little less in 
 it than before. Utgard Loke said : ' Well hast thou 
 drunk, yet not much. I should never have believed but 
 that Asar-Thor could have drunk more ; however, of this 
 I am confident, thou wilt empty it at the second time.' 
 He drank again ; but when he took away the horn from 
 his mouth, it seemed to him that it had sunk less this 
 time than the first; yet the horn might now be carried 
 without spilling. 
 
 " Then said Utgard Loke : * How is this, Thor ? If 
 thou dost not reserve thyself purposely for the third 
 draught, thine honor must be lost ; how canst thou be re- 
 garded as a great man, as the CEsir look upon thee, if 
 
122 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VIII 
 
 thou dost not distinguish thyself in other ways more than 
 thou hast done in this ? ' 
 
 " Then was Thor angry, put the horn to his mouth 
 drank with all his might, and strained himself to the ut- 
 most; and when he looked into the horn it was now some- 
 what lessened. He gave up the horn, and would not drink 
 any more. ' Now,' said Utgard Loke, ' now is it clear that 
 thy strength is not so great as we supposed. Wilt thou try 
 some other game, for we see that thou canst not succeed 
 in this ? ' Thor answered : ' I will now try something else ; 
 but I wonder who, amongst the CEsir, would call that a lit- 
 tle drink ! What play will you propose ? ' 
 
 " Utgard Loke answered : ' Young men think it mere 
 play to lift my cat from the ground ; and I would never 
 have proposed this to CEsir Thor, if I did not perceive 
 that thou art a much less man than I had thought thee ! 
 Thereupon sprang an uncommonly great grey cat upon the 
 floor. Thor advanced, took the cat round the body, and 
 lifted it up. The cat bent its back in the same degree as 
 Thor lifted ; and when Thor had lifted one of its feet from 
 the ground, and was not able to lift it any higher, said 
 Utgard Loke : ' The game has terminated just as I ex- 
 pected. The cat is very great, and Thor is low and small, 
 compared with the great men who are here with us.' 
 
 " Then said Thor : ' Little as you call me, I challenge 
 any one to wrestle with me, for now I am angry.' Utgard 
 Loke answered, looking round upon the benches : ' I see 
 no one here who would not deem it play to wrestle with 
 thee : but let us call hither the old Ella, my nurse ; with 
 her shall Thor prove his strength, if he will. She has given 
 many one a fall who appeared far stronger than Thor is.' 
 On this there entered the hall an old woman ; and Utgard 
 Loke said she would wrestle with Thor. In short, the 
 contest went so, that the more Thor exerted himself, the 
 firmer she stood ; and now began the old woman to exert 
 
VII I.] TIJOR'S JOURNEY TO JOTUNHEIM. 123 
 
 herself, and Thor to give way, and severe struggltis fol- 
 lowed. It was not long before Thor was brought down on 
 one knee. Then Utgard Loke stepped forward, bade 
 them cease the struggle, and said that Thor should at- 
 tempt nothing more at his court. It was now drawing to- 
 wards night ; Utgard Loke showed Thor and his com- 
 panions their lodging, where they were well accommo- 
 dated. 
 
 " As soon as it was light the next morning, up rose 
 Thor and his companions, dressed themselves, and pre- 
 pared to set out. Then came Utgard Loke, and ordered 
 the table to be set, where there wanted no good provisions, 
 either meat or drink. When they had breakfasted, they set 
 out on their way. Utgard Loke accompanied them out of 
 the castle ; but at parting he asked Thor how the journey 
 had gone off; whether he had found any man more mighty 
 than himself.? Thor answered, that the enterprise had 
 brought him much dishonor^ it was not to be denied, and 
 that he must esteem himself a man of no account, which 
 much mortified him. 
 
 " Utgard Loke replied : * Now will I tell thee the truth, 
 since thou art out of my castle, where, so long as I live 
 and reign, thou shalt never re-enter ; and whither, believe 
 me, thou hadst never come if I had known before what 
 might thou possessest, and that thou wouldst so nearly 
 plunge us into great trouble. False appearances have I 
 created for thee, so that the first time when thou mettest 
 the man in the wood it was I ; and when thou wouldst 
 open the provision-sack, I had laced it together with an 
 iron band, so that thou couldst not find the means to 
 undo it. After that thou struckest at me three times with 
 the hammer. The first stroke was the weakest, and 
 it had been my death had it hit me. Thou sawest by my 
 castle a rock, with three deep square holes, of which one 
 was very deep : those were the marks of thy hammer. The 
 
124 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VIII. 
 
 rock I placed in the way of the blow, without thy per- 
 ceiving it. 
 
 " ' So also in the games, when thou contendedst with 
 my courtiers. When Lopt made his essay, the fact was 
 this : he was very hungry, and ate voraciously ; but he 
 who was called Loge, wasyf/r, which consumed the trough 
 as well as the meat. And Huge (mind) was my thought 
 with which Thjalfe ran a race, and it was impossible for 
 him to match it in speed. When thou drankest from the 
 horn, and thoughtest that its contents grew no less, it was, 
 notwithstanding, a great marvel, such as I never believed 
 could have taken place. The one end of the horn stood in 
 the sea, which thou didst not perceive ; and when thou com- 
 est to the shore thou wilt see how much the ocean has dimin- 
 ished by what thou hast drunk. Men will call it the ebb. 
 
 " ' Further ' said he, ' most remarkable did it seem to 
 me that thou liftedst the cat, and in truth all became terri- 
 fied when they saw that thou liftedst one of its feet from 
 the ground. For it was no cat, as it seemed unto thee, but 
 the great serpent that lies coiled round the world. Scarcely 
 had he length that his tail and head might reach the earth, 
 and thou liftedst him so high up that it was but a little way 
 to heaven. That was a marvellous wrestling that thou 
 wrestledst with Ella (old age), for never has there been 
 any one, nor shall there ever be, let him approach what 
 great age he will, that Ella shall not overcome. 
 
 " ' Now we must part, and it is best for us on both sides 
 that you do not often come to me ; but if it should so hap- 
 pen, I shall defend my castle with such other arts that 
 you shall not be able to effect anything against me.' 
 
 "When Thor heard this discourse he grasped his ham- 
 mer and lifted it into the air, but as he was about to strike 
 he saw Utgard Loke nowhere. Then he turned back to 
 the castle to destroy it, and he saw only a beautiful and 
 wide plain, but no castle," 
 
Vni.] THE LAST SUNSET 125 
 
 So ends the story of Thor's journey to Jotunheim. 
 
 It was now just upon the stroke of midnight. Ever 
 since leaving EngLand, as each four-and-twenty hours we 
 cUmbed up nearer to the pole, the belt of dusk dividing 
 day from day had been growing narrower and narrower, 
 until having nearly reached the Arctic circle, this, — the 
 last night we were to traverse, — had dwindled to a thread 
 of shadow. Only another half-dozen leagues more, and 
 we would stand on the threshold of a four months' day ! 
 For the few preceding hours clouds had completely cover- 
 ed the heavens, except where a clear interval of sky, that 
 lay along the northern horizon, promised a glowing stage 
 for the sun's last obsequies. But like the heroes of old he 
 had veiled his face to die, and it was not until he dropped 
 down to the sea that the whole hemisphere overflowed with 
 glory and the gilded pageant concerted for his funeral 
 gathered in slow procession round his grave ; reminding 
 one of those tardy honors paid to some great prince of 
 song, who — left during life to languish in a garret — is 
 buried by nobles in Westminster Abbey. A few minutes 
 more the last fiery segment had disappeared beneath the 
 purple horizon, and all was over. 
 
 " The king is dead — the king is dead — the king is dead ! 
 Long live the king ! " And up from the sea that had just 
 entombed his sire, rose the young monarch of a new day ; 
 while the courtier clouds, in their ruby robes, turned faces 
 still aglow with the favors of their dead lord, to borrow 
 brighter blazonry from the smile of a new master. 
 
 A fairer or a stranger spectacle than the last Arctic 
 sunset cannot well be conceived : Evening and Morning — 
 like kinsmen whose hearts some baseless feud has kept 
 asunder — clasping hands across the shadow of the van- 
 ished night. 
 
 You must forgive me if sometimes I become a little 
 magniloquent j — for really, amid the grandeur of that fresh 
 
126 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VIII. 
 
 primaeval world, it was almost impossible to prevent one's 
 imagination from absorbing a clash of the local coloring. 
 We seemed to have suddenly waked up among the colossal 
 scenery of Keats' Hyperion. The pulses of young Titans 
 beat within our veins. Time itself, — no longer frittered 
 down into paltry divisions, — had assumed a more majestic 
 aspect. We had the appetite of giants — was it unnatural 
 we should also adopt "the large utterance of the early 
 gods ? " 
 
 As the ^'- Reim Hortense''' could not carry coals sufficient 
 for the entire voyage we had set out upon, it had been ar- 
 ranged that the steamer " Saxon " should accompany her 
 as a tender, and the Onunder Fiord,, on the north-west 
 coast of the island, had been appointed as the place of 
 rendezvous. Suddenly wheeling round therefore to the 
 right we quitted the open sea, and dived down a long grey 
 lane of water that ran on as far as the eye could reach be- 
 tween two lofty ranges of porphyry and amygdaloid. The 
 conformation of these mountains was most curious : it 
 looked as if the whole district was the effect of some pro- 
 digious crystallization, so geometrical was the outline of 
 each particular hill, sometimes rising cube-like, or penta- 
 gonal, but more generally built up into a perfect pyramid, 
 with stairs mounting in equal gradations to the summit. 
 Here and there the cone of the pyramid would be shaven 
 off, leaving it flat-topped like a Babylonian altar or Mex- 
 ican teocalli ; and as the sun's level rays, — shooting across 
 above our heads in golden rafters from ridge to ridge, — 
 smote brighter on some loftier peak behind, you might 
 almost fancy you beheld the blaze of sacrificial fires. The 
 peculiar symmetrical appearance of these rocks arises 
 from the fact of their being built up in layers of trap, al- 
 ternating with Neptunian beds 3 the disintegrating action 
 of snow and frost on the more exposed strata having grad- 
 ually carved their sides into flights of terraces. 
 
VIII.] ON UNDER FIORD. 127 
 
 It is in these Neptunian beds that the famous suitur- 
 brand is found, a species of bituminous timber, black and 
 shining like pitch coal ; but whether belonging to the 
 common carboniferous system, or formed from ancient 
 drift-wood, is still a point of dispute among the learned. 
 In this neighborhood considerable quantities both of zerlite 
 and chabasite are also found, but, generally speaking, Ice- 
 land is less rich in minerals than one would suppose ; 
 opal, calcedony, amethyst, malachite, obsidian, agate, and 
 feldspar, being the principal. Of sulphur the supply is in- 
 exhaustible. 
 
 After steaming down for several hours between these 
 terraced hills, we at last reached the extremity of the fiord, 
 where we found the '^ Saxon " looking like a black sea- 
 dragon coiled up at the bottom of his den. Up fluttered a 
 signal to the mast-head of the corvette, and blowing off her 
 steam, she wore round upon her heel, to watch the effects 
 of her summons. As if roused by the challenge of an in- 
 truder, the sleepy monster seemed suddenly to bestir itself, 
 and then pouring out volumes of sulphureous breath, set 
 out with many an angry snort in pursuit of the rash troub- 
 ler of its solitude. At least, such I am sure, might have 
 been the notion of the poor peasant inhabitants of two or 
 three cottages I saw scattered here and there along the 
 loch, as, startled from their sleep, they listened to the 
 stertorous breathing of the long snake-like ships, and 
 watched them glide past with magic motion along the 
 glassy surface of the water. Of course the novelty and 
 excitement of all we had been witnessing had put sleep and 
 bedtime quite out of our thoughts: but it was already six 
 o'clock in the morning ; it would require a considerable 
 time to get out of the fiord, and in a few hours after we 
 should be within the Arctic circle, so that if we were to 
 have any sleep at all — now was the time. Acting on these 
 considerations, we all three turned in ; and for the next 
 
128 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [VIII. 
 
 half-dozen hours I lay dreaming of a great funeral among 
 barren mountains, where white bears in peer's robes were 
 the pall-bearers, and a sea-dragon chief-mourner. When 
 we came on deck again, the northern extremity of Iceland 
 lay leagues away on our starboard quarter, faintly swim- 
 ming through the haze ; up overhead blazed the white 
 sun, and below glittered the level sea, like a pale blue 
 disc netted in silver lace. I seldom remember a brighter 
 day ; the thermometer was at 72°, and it really felt more 
 as if we were crossing the line than entering the frigid 
 zone. 
 
 Animated by that joyous inspiration which induces them 
 to make a fete of everything, the French officers, it appeared, 
 wished to organize a kind of carnival to inaugurate their 
 arri'val in Arctic waters, and by means of a piece of chalk 
 and a huge black board displayed from the hurricane-deck 
 of the " Reine Hortense^^'' an inquiry was made as to what 
 suggestion I might have to offer in futherance of this laud- 
 able object. With that poverty of invention and love of 
 spirits which characterise my nation, I am obliged to con- 
 fess that, after deep reflection, I was only able to answer, 
 " Grog." But seeing an extra flag or two was being run up 
 at each masthead of the Frenchman, the lucky idea occur- 
 red to me to dress the '' Foam " in all her colors. The 
 schooner's toilette accomplished, I went on board the 
 ^'' Reine Ho rtense^^'' and you cannot imagine anything more 
 fragile, graceful, or coquettish, than her appearance from 
 the deck of the corvette, — as she curtsied and swayed her- 
 self on the bosom of the almost imperceptible swell, or 
 flirted up the water with her curving bows. She really 
 looked like a living little lady. 
 
 But from all such complacent reveries I was soon 
 awakened by the sound of a deep voice, proceeding appar- 
 ently from the very bottom of the sea, which hailed the ship 
 in the most authoritative manner, and imperiously demand- 
 
VIII.] '' LE PERE ARCTIQUEP 129 
 
 ed her name, where she was going, whom she carried, and 
 whence she came : to all which questions, a young lieuten- 
 ant, standing with his hat off at the gangwa}^, politely re- 
 sponded. Apparently satisfied on these points, our invisible 
 interlocutor then announced his intention of coming on 
 board. All the officers of the ship collected on the poop 
 to receive him. 
 
 In a few seconds more, amid the din of the most un- 
 earthly music, and surrounded by a bevy of hideous mon- 
 sters, a white-bearded, spectacled personage — clad in 
 bear-skin, with a cocked hat over his left ear — presented 
 himself in the gangway, and handing to the officers of the 
 watch an enormous board, on which was written. 
 
 « LE p:&re ARCTIQUE," 
 
 by way of visiting card, — proceeded to walk aft, and take 
 the sun's altitude with what, as far as I could make out, 
 seemed to be a plumber's wooden triangle. This prelimi- 
 nary operation having been completed, there then began a 
 regular riot all over the ship. The yards were suddenly 
 manned with red devils, black monkeys, and every kind of 
 grotesque monster, while the whole ship's company, officers 
 and men promiscuously mingled, danced the cancan upon 
 deck. In order that the warmth of the day should not 
 make us forget that we had arrived in his dominions, the 
 Arctic father had stationed certain of his familiars in the 
 tops, who at stated intervals flung down showers of hard 
 peas, as typical of hail^ while the powdering of each other's 
 faces with handfuls of flour could not fail to remind every- 
 body on board that we had reached the latitude of sitow. 
 At the commencement of this noisy festival I found myself 
 standing on the hurricane deck, next to one of the grave 
 savants attached to the expedition, who seemed to contem- 
 plate the antics that were being played at his feet with that 
 
 9 
 
130 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VIII. 
 
 sad smile of indulgence with which Wisdom sometimes 
 deigns to commiserate the gaiety of Folly. Suddenly he 
 disappeared from beside me, and the next that I saw or 
 heard of him — he was hard at work pirouetting on the deck 
 below with a red-tailed demon, and exhibiting in his steps 
 a " verve " and a graceful audacity which at Paris would 
 have certainly obtained for him the honors of expulsion 
 at the hands of the municipal authorities. The entertain- 
 ment of the day concluded with a discourse delivered out 
 of a wind-sail by the chaplain attached to the person of the 
 Pere Arctique, which was afterwards washed down by a 
 cauldron full of grog, served out in bumpers to the several 
 actors in this unwonted ceremonial. As the prince had 
 been good enough to invite us to dinner, instead of return- 
 ing to the schooner I spent the intermediate hour in pacing 
 the quarter-deck with Baron de la Ronciere, — the naval 
 commander entrusted with the charge of the expedition. 
 Like all the smartest officers in the French navy, he speaks 
 English beautifully, and I shall ever remember with grati- 
 tude the cordiality with which he welcomed me on board 
 his ship, and the thoughtful consideration of his arrange- 
 ments for the little schooner which he had taken in tow. 
 At five o'clock dinner was announced, and I question if so 
 sumptuous a banquet has ever been served up before in 
 that outlandish part of the world, embellished as it was by 
 selections from the best operas played by the corps a'orches- 
 tre which had accompanied the Prince from Paris. During 
 the pauses of the music the conversation naturally turned 
 on the strange lands we were about to visit, and the best 
 mode of spifflicating the white bears who were probably 
 already shaking in their snow shoes : but alas ! while we 
 were in the very act of exulting incur supremacy over these 
 new domains, the stiffened finger of the Ice king was tra- 
 cing in frozen characters a " Mene, mene, tekel upharsin " 
 on the plate glass of the cabin windows. During the last 
 
VIII.] LES MERS GLACIALES. 131 
 
 half-hour the thermometer had been gradually falling, until 
 it was nearly down to 32*^ ; a dense penetrating fog envelop- 
 ed both the vessels — (the " Saxon " had long since dropped 
 out of sight), flakes of snow began floating slowly down, and 
 a gelid breeze from the north-west told too plainly that we 
 had reached the frontiers of the solid ice, though we were 
 still a good hundred miles distant from the American shore. 
 Although at any other time the terrible climate we had 
 dived into would have been very depressing, under present 
 circumstances I think the change rather tended to raise our 
 spirits, perhaps because the idea of fog and ice in the 
 month of June seemed so completely to uncockneyfy us. 
 At all events there was no doubt now we had got into les 
 me7'S glaciales, as our French friends called them, and, what- 
 ever else might be in store for us, there was sure hence- 
 forth to be no lack of novelty and excitement. 
 
 By this time it was already well on in the evening, so 
 having agreed with Monsieur de la Ronciere on a code of 
 signals in case of fogs, and that a jack hoisted at the mizen 
 of the " Reine ITortejiseJ' or at the fore of the schooner, 
 should be an intimation of a desire of one or other to cast 
 off, we got into the boat and were dropped down alongside 
 our own ship. Ever since leaving Iceland the steamer had 
 been heading east-north-east by compass, but during the 
 whole of the ensuing night she shaped a south-east course ; 
 the thick mist rendering it unwise to stand on any longer 
 in the direction of the banquise^ as they call the outer edge 
 of the belt that hems in eastern Greenland. About three 
 A.M. it cleared up a little. By breakfast time the sun re- 
 appeared, and we could see five or six miles ahead of the 
 vessel. It was shortly after this, that as I was standing in 
 the main rigging peering out over the smooth blue surface 
 of the sea, a white twinkling point of light suddenly caught 
 my eye about a couple of miles off on the port bow, which 
 a telescope soon resolved into a solitary isle of ice, dancing 
 
132 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VIII. 
 
 and dipping in the sunlight. As you may suppose, the news 
 brought everybody upon deck j and when ahnost immedi- 
 ately afterwards a string of other pieces, ghttering like a 
 diamond necklace, hove in sight, the excitement was extreme. 
 
 Here at all events was honest blue salt water frozen 
 solid, and when, as we proceeded, the scattered fragments 
 Lhickened, and passed like silver argosies on either hand, 
 until at last we found ourselves enveloped in an innumer- 
 able fleet of bergs, — it seemed as if we could never be 
 weary of admiring a sight so strange and beautiful. It was 
 rather in form and color than in size that these ice islets 
 were remarkable ; anything approaching to a real iceberg 
 we neither saw, nor are we likely to see. In fact, the lofty 
 ice mountains that wander like vagrant islands along the 
 coast of America, seldom or never come to the eastward 
 or northward of Cape Farewell. They consist of land ice, 
 and are all generated among bays and straits within Baffin's 
 Bay, and first enter the Atlantic a good deal to the south- 
 ward of Iceland j whereas the Polar ice, among which we 
 have been knocking about, is iield ice and — except when 
 packed one ledge above the other, by great pressure — is 
 comparatively flat. I do not think I saw any pieces that 
 were piled up higher than thirty or thirty-five feet above the 
 sea-level, although at a little distance through the mist they 
 may have loomed much loftier. 
 
 In quaintness of form, and in brilliancy of colors, these 
 wonderful masses surpassed everything I had imagined ; 
 and we found endless amusement in watching their fantastic 
 procession. 
 
 At one time it was a knight on horseback, clad in sap- 
 phire mail, a white plume above his casque. Or a cathe- 
 dral window with shafts of chrysophras, new powdered by 
 a snow-storm. Or a smooth sheer cliff of lapis lazuli ; or 
 a Banyan tree, with roots descending from its branches, 
 and a foliage as delicate as the efflorescence of molten 
 
VIII.] ICE. 133 
 
 metal ; or a fairy dragon, that breasted the water in scales 
 of emerald ; or anything else that your fancy chose to 
 conjure up. After a little time, the mist again descended 
 on the scene, and dulled each glittering form to a shape- 
 less mass of white ; while in spite of all our endeavors to 
 keep upon our northerly course, we were constantly com- 
 pelled to turn and wind about in every direction — some- 
 times standing on for several hours at a stretch to the 
 southward and eastward. These perpetual embarrassments 
 became at length very wearying, and in order to relieve 
 the tedium of our progress I requested the Doctor to re- 
 move one of my teeth. This he did with the greatest 
 ability — a wrench to starboard, — another to port, — and up 
 it flew through the cabin sky-light. 
 
 During the whole of that afternoon and the following 
 night we made but little Northing at all, and the next day 
 the ice seemed more pertinaciously in our way than ever ; 
 neither could we relieve the monotony of the hours by 
 conversing with each other on the black boards, as the 
 mist was too thick for us to distinguish from on board one 
 ship anything that was passing on the deck of the other. 
 Notwithstanding the great care and skill with which the 
 steamer threaded her way among the loose floes, it was im- 
 possible sometimes to prevent fragments of ice striking us 
 with considerable violence on the bows ; and as we lay in 
 bed at night, I confess that until we got accustomed to the 
 noise, it was by no means a pleasant thing to hear the 
 pieces angrily scraping along the ship's sides — within two 
 inches of our ears. On the evening of the fourth day it 
 came on to blow pretty hard, and at midnight it had fresh- 
 ened to half a gale ; but by dint of standing well away to 
 the eastward we had succeeded in reaching comparatively 
 open water, and I had gone to bed in great hopes that at 
 all events the breeze would brush off the fog, and enable 
 us to see our way a little more clearly the next morning. 
 
134 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VIII. 
 
 At five o'clock a. m., the officer of the watch jumped 
 down into my cabin, and awoke me with the news — " That 
 the Frenchman was a-saying summat on Iiis blackboard ! " 
 Feeling by the motion that a very high sea must have been 
 knocked up during the night, I began to be afraid that 
 something must have gone wrong with the towing-gear, or 
 that a hawser might have become entangled in the cor- 
 vette's screw — which was the catastrophe of which I had 
 always been most apprehensive ; so slipping on a pair of 
 fur boots, which I carefully kept by the bedside in case of 
 an emergency, and throwing a cloak over — • 
 
 " Le simple appareil 
 D'une beaute qu'on vient d'arracher au sommeil," 
 
 I caught hold of a telescope, and tumbled up on deck. 
 Anything more bitter and disagreeable than the icy blast, 
 which caught me round the waist as I emerged from the 
 companion I never remember. With both hands occupied 
 in levelling the telescope, I could not keep the wind from 
 blowing the loose wrap quite oif my shoulders, and except 
 for the name of the thing, I might just as well have been 
 standing in my shirt. Indeed, I was so irresistibly struck 
 with my owai resemblance to a colored print I remember in 
 youthful days, — representing that celebrated character 
 " Puss in Boots," with a purple robe of honor streaming 
 far behind him on the wind, to express the velocity of his 
 magical progress — that I laughed aloud while I shivered in 
 the blast. What with the spray and mist, moreover, it was 
 a good ten minutes before I could make out the writing, 
 and when at last I did spell out the letters, their meaning 
 was not very inspiriting : " Nous retoui-nons a Reykjavik !"" 
 So evidently they had given it up as a bad job, and had 
 come to the conclusion that the island was inaccessible. 
 Vet it seemed very hard to have to turn back, after coming 
 
VIIL] A PARTING IN A LOMELY SPOT. 135 
 
 SO far ! We had already made upwards of 300 miles since 
 leaving Iceland: it could not be much above 120 or 130 
 more to Jan Mayen ; and although things looked unprom- 
 ising, there still seemed such a chance of success, that I 
 could not find it in my heart to give in ; so, having run up 
 a jack at the fore — all writing on our board was out of the 
 question, we were so deluged with spray — I jumped down 
 to wake Fitzgerald and Sigurdr, and tell them we were go- 
 ing to cast off, in case they had any letters to send home. 
 In the mean time, I scribbled a line of thanks and good 
 wishes to M. de la Ronciere, and another to you, and 
 guyed it with our mails on board the corvette — in a milk 
 can. 
 
 In the mean time all was bustle on board our decks 
 and I think every one was heartily pleased at the thoughts 
 of getting the little schooner again under canvass. A 
 couple of reefs were hauled down in the mainsail and 
 staysail, and everything got ready for making sail. 
 
 " Is all clear for'ard for slipping, Mr. Wyse ? " 
 
 " Ay, ay. Sir ; all clear ! " 
 
 " Let go the tow-ropes ! " 
 
 "All gone, Sir!" . ' 
 
 And down went the heavy hawsers into the sea, up 
 fluttered the staysail, — then — poising for a moment on the 
 waves with the startled hesitation of a bird suddenly set 
 free, — the little creature spread her wings, thrice dipped 
 her ensign in token of adieu — receiving in return a hearty 
 cheer from the French crew — and glided like a phantom 
 into the North, while the " Reine Hortense " puffed back to 
 Iceland.^ 
 
 1 It subsequently appeared that the " Saxort,'" on the second day 
 after leaving Onunder Fiord, had unfortunately knocked a hole in her 
 bottom against the ice, and was obliged to run ashore in a sinking 
 state. In consequence of never having been rejoined by her tender, 
 the " Reme Hortense " found herself short of coals ; and as the en- 
 
136 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VIII. 
 
 Ten minutes more, and we were the only denizens of 
 that misty sea. I confess I felt excessively sorry to have 
 lost the society of such joyous companions ; they had re- 
 ceived us always with such merry good nature : the Prince 
 had shown himself so gracious and considerate, and he 
 was surrounded by a staff of such clever, well-informed 
 persons, that it was with the deepest regret I watched the 
 fog close round the magnificent corvette, and bury her — 
 and all whom she contained — within its bosom. Our own 
 situation, too, was not altogether without causing me a lit- 
 tle anxiety. We had not seen the sun for two days ; it 
 was very thick with a heavy sea, and dodging about as we 
 had been among the ice, at the heels of the steamer, our 
 dead reckoning was not very much to be depended upon. 
 The best plan I thought would be to stretch away at once 
 clear of the ice, then run up into the latitude of Jan May- 
 en, and — as soon as we should have reached the parallel 
 of its northern extremity — bear down on the land. If 
 there was any access at all to the island, it was very evi- 
 dent it would be on its northern or eastern side ; and now 
 that we were alone, to keep on knocking up through a hun- 
 dred miles or so of ice in a thick fog, in our fragile 
 schooner, would have been out of the question. 
 
 The ship's course, therefore, having been shaped in ac- 
 cordance with this view, I stole back into bed and resumed 
 my violated slumbers. Towards mid- day the weather be- 
 gan to moderate, and by four o'clock we were skimming 
 along on a smooth sea, with all sails set. This state of 
 prosperity continued for the next twenty-four hours ; we 
 had made about eighty knots since parting company with 
 
 cumbered state of the sea rendered it already very unlikely that any 
 access would be found open to the island, M. de la Ronciere very prop- 
 erly judged it advisable to turn back. He re-entered the Reykjavik 
 harbor without so much as a shovelful of coals left on board. 
 
VIII.] ANXIOUS HOURS. 137 
 
 the Frenchman, and it was now time to run down West 
 and pick up the land. Luckily the sky was pretty clear, 
 and as we sailed on through open water I really began to 
 think our prospects very brilliant. But about three o'clock 
 on the second day, specks of ice began to flicker here and 
 there on the horizon, then larger bulks came floating by 
 in forms as picturesque as ever — (one, I particularly re- 
 member, a human hand thrust up out of the water with 
 outstretched forefinger, as if to warn us against proceeding 
 farther), until at last the whole sea became clouded with 
 hummocks that seemed to gather on our path in magical 
 multiplicity. 
 
 Up to this time we had seen nothing of the island, yet 
 I knew we must be within a very few miles of it ; and now 
 to make things quite pleasant, there descended upon us a 
 thicker fog than I should have thought the atmosphere 
 capable of sustaining ; it seemed to hang in solid festoons 
 from the masts and spars. To say that you could not see 
 your hand, ceased almost to be any longer figurative even 
 the ice was hid — except those fragments immediately adja- 
 cent, whose ghastly brilliancy the mist itself could not quite 
 extinguish, as they glimmered round the vessel like a circle 
 of luminous phantoms. The perfect stillness of the sea 
 and sky added very much to the solemnity of the scene ; 
 almost every breath of wind had fallen, scarcely a ripple 
 tinkled against the copper sheathing, as the solitary little 
 schooner glided along at the rate of half a knot or so an 
 hour, and the only sound we heard was the distant wash 
 of waters, but whether on a great shore, or along a belt of 
 solid ice, it was impossible to say. In such weather, — as 
 the original discoverers of Jan Mayen said under similar 
 circumstances, — " it was easier to hear land than to see it." 
 Thus, hour after hour passed by and brought no change. 
 Fitz and Sigurdr — who had begun quite to disbelieve 
 in the existence of the island — went to bed, while I remain- 
 
138 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VIII. 
 
 ed pacing up and down the deck, anxiously questioning 
 eacli quarter of tlie grey canopy that enveloped us. At 
 last, about four in the morning, I fanced some change was 
 going to take place ; the heavy wreaths of vapor seemed 
 to be imperceptibly separating, and in a few minutes more 
 the solid roof of grey suddenly split asunder, and I beheld 
 through the gap — thousands of feet overhead, as if 
 suspended in the crystal sky — a cone of illuminated 
 snow. 
 
 You can imagine my delight. It was really that of an 
 .•anchorite catching a glimpse of the seventh heaven. There 
 at last was the long-sought-for mountain actually tumbling 
 down upon our heads. Columbus could not have been 
 more pleased when, after nights of watching, he saw the 
 first fires of a new hemisphere dance upon the water \ nor 
 indeed, scarcely less disappointed at their sudden disap- 
 pearance than I was, when, after having gone below to 
 wake Sigurdr, and tell him we had seen bona fide terra- 
 firma, I found, on returning upon deck, that the roof of 
 mist had closed again, and shut out all trace of the tran- 
 sient vision. However I had got a clutch of the Island, 
 and no slight matter should make me let go my hold. In 
 the meantime there was nothing for it but to wait patiently 
 until the curtain lifted ; and no child ever stared more 
 eagerly at a green drop-scene in expectation of " the realm of 
 dazzling splendor " promised in the bill, than I did at 
 the motionless grey folds that hung round us. At last the 
 hour of liberation came ; a purer light seemed gradually to 
 penetrate the atmosphere, brown turned to grey, and grey 
 to white, and white to transparent blue, until the lost hori- 
 zon entirely reappeared except where in one direction an 
 impenetrable veil of haze still hung suspended from the 
 zenith to the sea. Behind that veil I knew must lie Jan 
 Mayen. 
 
 A few minutes more, and slowly, silently, in a manner 
 
VIII.] GLACIERS. 139 
 
 you could take no count of, its dusky hem first deepened 
 to a violet tinge, then gradually lifting, displayed a long 
 line of coast — in reality but the roots of Beerenberg — 
 dyed of the darkest purple ; while obedient to a common 
 impulse, the clouds that wrapped its summit gently disen- 
 gaged themselves, and left the mountain standing in all 
 the magnificence of his 6,870 feet, girdled by a single zone 
 of pearly vapor, from underneath whose floating folds 
 seven enormous glaciers rolled down into the sea ! Nature 
 seemed to have turned scene-shifter, so artfully were the 
 phases of this glorious spectacle successively developed. 
 
 Although — by reason of our having hit upon its side 
 instead of its narrow end — the outline of Mount Beeren- 
 berg appeared to us more like a sugar-loaf than a spire — ■ 
 broader at the base and rounder at the top than I had im- 
 agined, — in size, color,, and effect, it far surpassed any- 
 thing I had anticipated. The glaciers were quite an unex- 
 pected element of beauty. Imagine a mighty river of as 
 great a volume as the Thames — started down the side of 
 a mountain, — bursting over every impediment, — whirled 
 into a thousand eddies, — tumbling and raging on from 
 ledge to ledge in quivering cataracts of foam, — then sud- 
 denly struck rigid by a power so instantaneous in its action 
 that even the froth and fleeting wreaths of spray have 
 stiffened into the immutability of sculpture. Unless you 
 had seen it, it would be almost impossible to conceive the 
 strangeness of the contrast between the actual tranquillity 
 of these silent crystal rivers and the violent descending 
 energy impressed upon their exterior. You must remem- 
 ber, too, all this is upon a scale of such prodigious magni- 
 tude, that when we succeeded subsequently in approaching 
 the spot — where with a leap like that of Niagara one of 
 these glaciers plunges down into the sea — -the eye, no lon- 
 ger able to take in its fluvial character, was content to rest 
 in simple astonishment at what then appeared a lucent 
 
140 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VIII. 
 
 precipice of grey-green ice, rising to the height of several 
 hundred feet above the masts of the vesseL 
 
 As soon as we had got a little over our first feelings of 
 astonishment at the panorama thus suddenly revealed to us 
 by the lifting of the fog, I began to consider what would 
 be the best way of getting to the anchorage on the west — 
 or Greenland side of the island. We were still seven or 
 eight miles from the shore^ and the northern extremity 
 of the island, round which we should have to pass, lay 
 about five leagues off, bearing West by North, while between 
 us and the land stretched a continuous breadth of floating 
 ice. The hummocks, however, seemed to be pretty loose 
 with openings here and there, so that with careful sailing I 
 thought we might pass through, and perhaps on the farther 
 side of the island come into a freer sea. Alas ! after having 
 with some difficulty wound along until we were almost 
 abreast of the cape, we were stopped dead short by a solid 
 rampart of fixed ice, which in one direction leant upon the 
 land, and in the other ran away as far as the eye could 
 reach into the dusky North. Thus hopelessly cut off from 
 all access to the western and better anchorage, it only re- 
 mained to put about, and — running down along the land 
 ■ — attempt to reach a kind of open roadstead on the eastern 
 side, a little to the south of the volcano described by Dr. 
 Scoresby : but in this endeavor also we were doomed to be 
 disappointed ; for after sailing some considerable distanc3 
 through a field of ice, which kept getting more closely pack- 
 ed as we pushed further into it, we came upon another 
 barrier equally impenetrable, that stretched away from the 
 island toward the Southward and Eastv/ard. Under these 
 circumstances, the only thing to be done was to get back 
 to where the ice was looser, and attempt a landing wher- 
 ever a favorable opening presented itself. But even to ex- 
 tricate ourselves from our present position, was now no 
 longer of such easy performance. Within the last hour the 
 
VIII.] DIFFICUL TIES. 1 4 1 
 
 wind had shifted into the North-West ; that is to say, it was 
 now blowing right down the path'along which we had pick- 
 ed our way ; in order to return, therefore, it would be neces- 
 sary to work the ship to windward through' a sea as thickly 
 crammed with ice as a lady's boudoir is with furniture. 
 Moreover, it had become evident, from the obvious closing 
 of the open spaces, that some considerable pressure was 
 acting upon the outside of the field ; but whether origina- 
 ting in a current, or the change of wind, or another field 
 being driven down upon it, I could not tell. Be that as it 
 might, out we must get, — unless we wanted to be cracked 
 like a walnut-shell between the drifting ice and the solid 
 belt to leeward ; so sending a steady hand to the helm, — 
 for these unusual phenomena had begun to make some of 
 my people lose their heads a little, no one onboard having 
 ever seen a bit of ice before, — I stationed myself in the 
 bows, while Mr. Wyse conned the vessel from the square 
 yard. Then there began one of the prettiest and most 
 exciting pieces of nautical manoeuvring that can be imagin- 
 ed. Every single soul on board was summoned upon de^k ; 
 to all, their several stations and duties were assigned — ■ 
 always excepting the cook, who was merely directed to 
 make himself generally useful. As soon as everybody was 
 ready, down went the helm, — about came the ship, — and 
 the critical part of the business commenced. Of course, 
 in order to wind and twist the schooner in and out among 
 the devious channels left between the hummocks, it was 
 necessary she should have considerable way on her ; at the 
 same time so narrow were some of the passages, and so 
 sharp their turnings, that unless she had been the most 
 handy vessel in the world, she would have had a very nar- 
 row squeak for it. I never saw anything so beautiful as 
 her behavior. Had she been a living creature, she could 
 not have dodged, and wound, and doubled, with more con- 
 scious cunning and dexterity ; and it was quite amusing 
 
142 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VIII. 
 
 to hear the endearing way in which the people spoke to 
 her, each time the nimble creature contrived to elude some 
 more than usually threatening tongue of ice. Once or twice 
 in spite of all our exertions, it was impossible to save her 
 from a collision ; all that remained to be done, as it became 
 evident she could not clear some particular floe, or go 
 about in time to avoid it, was to haul the staysail sheet a- 
 weather in order to deaden her way as much as possible, 
 and putting the helm down — let her go right at it, so that 
 she should receive the blow on her stem, and not on the 
 bluff of the bow ; while all hands, armed with spars and 
 fenders, rushed forward to ease off the shock. And here 
 I feel it just to pay a tribute of admiration to the cook, who 
 on these occasions never failed to exhibit an immense 
 amount of misdirected energy, breaking — I remember — at 
 the same moment, both the cabin sky-light, and an oar, in 
 single combat with a large berg that was doing no particu- 
 lar harm, to us, but against which he seemed suddenly to 
 have conceived a violent spite. Luckily a considerable 
 quantity of snow overlaid the ice, which, acting as a buffer 
 in some measure mitigated the violence of the concussion 
 while the very fragility of her build diminishing the mo- 
 mentum, proved in the end the little schooner's greatest 
 security. Nevertheless, I must confess that more than once, 
 while leaning forward in expectation of the scrunch I knew 
 must come, I have caught myself half murmuring to the 
 fair face that seemed to gaze so serenely at the cold white 
 mass we were approaching : " O Lady, is it not now fit thou 
 shouldest befriend the good ship of which thou art the 
 pride ? " 
 
 At last after having received two or three pretty severe 
 bumps, — though the loss of a little copper was the only 
 damage they entailed, — we made our way back to the north- 
 ern end of the island, where the pack was looser, and we 
 had at all events a little more breathing room, 
 
VI 1 1 . 1 DIFFICUL TIES, 1 43 
 
 It had become very cold; — so cold, indeed, that Mr. 
 Wyse — no longer able to keep a clutch of the rigging — had 
 a severe tumble from the yard on which he was standing. 
 The wind was freshening, and the ice was evidently still 
 in motion ; but although very anxious to get back again into 
 open water, we thought it would not do to go away without 
 landing, even if it were only for an hour. So having laid 
 the schooner right under the cliff, and putting into the gig 
 our own discarded figure-head, a white ensign, a flag staff, 
 and a tin biscuit-box, containing a paper on which I had 
 hastily written the schooner's name, the date of her arrival 
 and the names of all those who sailed on board, — we pulled 
 aslrore. A ribbon of beach not more than fifteen yards 
 wide, composed of iron-sand, augite, and pyroxene, running 
 along under the basaltic precipice — upwards of a thousand 
 feet high — which serves as a kind of plinth to the mountain, 
 was the only standing room this part of the coast afforded. 
 With considerable difficulty, and after a good hour's climb 
 we succeeded in dragging the figure-head we had brought 
 ashore with us, up a sloping patch of snow, which lay in a 
 crevice of the cliff, and thence a little higher, to a natural 
 pedestal formed by a broken shaft of rock ; where — after 
 having tied the tin box round her neck, and duly plant- 
 ed the white ensign of St. George beside her, — we left 
 the superseded damsel, somewhat grimly smiling across 
 the frozen ocean at her feet, until some Bacchus of a bear 
 should come to relieve the loneliness of my wooden 
 Ariadne. 
 
 On descending to the water's edge, we walked some lit- 
 tle distance along the beach without observing anything 
 very remarkable, unless it were the network of vertical and 
 horizontal dikes of basalt which shot in every direction 
 through the scoriae and conglomerate of which the cliff seem- 
 ed to be composed. Innumerable sea-birds sat in the crev- 
 ices and ledges of the uneven surface, or flew about us with 
 
144 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES [Vill. 
 
 such confiding curiosity, tliat by reaching out my hand I 
 could touch their wings as they poised themselves in the 
 air alongside. There was one old sober-sides with whom 
 I passed a good ten minutes tete-a-tete^ trying who could 
 stare the other out of countenance. 
 
 It was now high time to be off. As soon then as we had 
 collected some geological specimens, and duly christened 
 the little cove, at the bottom of which we had landed, 
 " Clandeboye Creek," — we walked back to the gig. But — • 
 so rapidly was the ice drifting down upon the island, — we 
 found it had already become doubtful whether we should 
 not have to carry the boat over the patch which — -during the 
 couple of hours we had spent on shore — had almost cut her 
 off from access to the water. If this was the case with the 
 gig, it was very evident the quicker we got the schooner out 
 to sea again the better. So immediately we returned on 
 board, having first fired a gun in token of adieu to the deso- 
 late land we should never again set foot on, the ship was 
 put about, and our task of working out towards the open 
 water recommenced. As this operation was likely to require 
 some time, directly breakfast was over, (it was now about 
 eleven o'clock a.m.,) and after a vain attempt had been 
 made to take a photograph of the mountain, which the mist 
 was again beginning to envelope, I turned in to take a nap, 
 which I rather needed, — ^fuUy expecting that oy the time I 
 awoke we should be beginning to get pretty clear of the 
 pack. On coming on deck, however, four hours later, 
 although we had reached away a considerable distance from 
 the land, and had even passed the spot, where, the day 
 before, the sea was almost free, — the floes seemed closer 
 than ever ; and, what was worse, from the mast-head not a 
 vestige of open water was to be discovered. On every side, 
 as far as the eye could reach, there stretched over the sea 
 one cold white canopy of ice. 
 
VIII.] « CLANDEB O YE CREEK. " 1 45 
 
 The prospect of being beset, in so slightly built a craft, 
 was — to say the least — unpleasant ; it looked very much as 
 if fresh packs were driving down upon us from the very 
 direction in which we were trying to push out, yet it had 
 become a matter of doubt which course it would be best to 
 steer. To remain stationary was out of the question ; the 
 pace at which the fields drift, is sometimes very rapid,^ and 
 the first nip would settle the poor little schooner's business 
 for ever. At the same time, it was quite possible that any 
 progress we succeeded in making, instead of tending towards 
 her liberation, might perhaps be only getting her deeper 
 into the scrape. One thing was very certain, — -Northing 
 or Southing might be an even chance, but whatever East- 
 ing we could make must be to the good ; so I determined 
 to choose whichever vein seemed to have most Easterly di- 
 rection in it. Two or three openings of this sort from time 
 to time presented themselves ; but in every case, after fol- 
 lowing them a certain distance, they proved to be but ad- 
 de-sacs^ and we had to return discomfited. My great hope 
 was in a change of wind. It was already blowing very 
 fresh from the northward and eastward ; and if it would but 
 fshift a few points, in all probability the ice would loosen as 
 rapidly as it had collected. In the mean time, the only 
 
 I Dr. Scoresby states that the invariable tendency of fields of ice is to 
 drift south-westward, and that the strange effects produced by their 
 occasional rapid motions, is one of the most striking objects the Polar 
 Seas present, and certainly the most terrific. They frequently acquire a 
 rotary motion, whereby their circumference attains a velocity of several 
 miles an hour ; and it is scarcely possible to conceive the consequences 
 produced by a body, exceeding ten thousand million tons in weight, 
 coming in contact with another under such circumstances . The strong- 
 est ship is but an insignificant impediment between two fields in motion. 
 Numbers of whale vessels have thus been destroyed ; some have been 
 thrown upon the ice ; some have had their hulls completely torn open, 
 or divided in two, and others have been overrun by the ice, and buried 
 beneath its heaped fragments. 
 
 10 
 
146 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [VIII. 
 
 thing to do was to keep a sharp look-out, sail the vessel 
 carefully, and take advantage of every chance of getting to 
 the eastward. 
 
 It now grew colder than ever, — the distant land was 
 almost hid with fog, — tattered dingy clouds came crowding 
 over the heavens, — while Wilson moved uneasily about the 
 deck, with the air of Cassandra at the conflagration of 
 Troy. It was Sunday, the 14th of July, and I had a mo- 
 mentary fancy that I could hear the sweet church bells in 
 England pealing across the cold white flats which sur- 
 rounded us. At last, about five o'clock p. m., the wind 
 shifted.a point or two, then flew round into the south-east. 
 Not long after, just as I had expected, the ice evidently 
 began to loosen, — a promising opening was reported from 
 the mast-head, a mile or so away on the port-bow, and by 
 nine o'clock we were spanking along, at the rate of eight 
 knots an hour, under a double-reefed mainsail and staysail 
 — down a continually widening channel, between two wave- 
 lashed ridges of drift ice. Before midnight, we had re- 
 gained the open sea, and were standing away 
 
 " To Norroway, 
 To Norroway over the faem." 
 
 In the forenoon I had been too busy to have our usual 
 Sunday church ; but as soon as we were pretty clear of the 
 ice I managed to have a short service in the cabin. 
 
 Of our run to Hammerfest I have nothing particular to 
 say. The distance is eight hundred miles, and we did it 
 in eight days. On the whole, the weather was pretty fair, 
 though cold, and often foggy. One day indeed was per- 
 fectly lovely, — the one before we made the coast of Lap- 
 land, — without a cloud to be seen for the space of twenty- 
 four hours ; giving me an opportunity of watching the sun 
 performing his complete circle overhead, and taking a nie- 
 
^^MH 
 
 iii 
 
 IMi 
 
 'f^Mm^MWWmlliwM^^^n^^M 
 
VIIL] '' TO NORROWAY, OVER THE FAEMr 149 
 
 ridian altitude at midnight. We were then in 70° 25' North 
 latitude ; i. e., almost as far north as the North Cape ; yet 
 the thermometer had been up to 80° during the afternoon. 
 Shortly afterwards the fog came on again, and next 
 morning it was blowing very hard from the eastward. This 
 was the more disagreeable, as it is always very difficult, 
 under the most favorable circumstances, to find one's way 
 into any harbor along this coast, fenced off, as it is, from 
 the ocean by a complicated outwork of lofty islands, which 
 in their turn, are hemmed in by nests of sunken rock, sown 
 as thick as peas, for miles to seaward. There are no pilots 
 until you are within the islands, and no longer want them, 
 — no light-houses or beacons of any sort ; and all that you 
 have to go by is the shape of the hill-tops ; but as, on the 
 clearest day, the outline of the mountains have about as 
 much variety as the teeth of a saw, and as on a cloudy day, 
 
 '"Sf^^^^^^^Sk 
 
 which happens about seven times a week, you see nothing 
 but the line of their dark roots, — the unfortunate mariner, 
 who goes poking about for the narrow passage which is to 
 lead him between the islands, — at the hacJz of one of which 
 a pilot is waiting for him, — will, in all probability, have 
 already placed his \essel in a position to render that func- 
 tionary's further attendance a work of supererogation. At 
 least, I know it was as much surprise as pleasure that I 
 experienced, when, after having with many misgivings ven- 
 tured to slip through an opening in the monotonous barri- 
 cade of mountains, we found it was the right channel to 
 our port. If the king of all the Goths would only stick 
 up a light-house here and there along the ^^g^ of his 
 
ISO LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [VIII. 
 
 Arctic seaboard, he would save many an honest fellow a 
 heart-ache. 
 
 I must now finish this long letter. 
 
 Hammerfest is scarcely worthy of my wasting paper on 
 it. When I tell 3'Ou that it is the most northerly town in 
 Europe, I think I have mentioned its only remarkable 
 characteristic. It stands on the edge of an enormous 
 sheet of water, completely landlocked by three islands, 
 and consists of a congregation of wooden houses, plastered 
 up against a steep mountain ; some of which being built 
 on piles, give the notion of the place having slipped down 
 off the hill half-way into the sea. Its poiDulation is so and 
 so, — its chief exports this and that ; for all v/hich, see Mr. 
 Murray's " Handbook," where you will find all such mat- 
 ters much more clearly and correctly set down than I am 
 likely to state them. At all events, it produces milk, 
 cream — not butter — salad, and bad potatoes ; which is 
 what we are most interested in at present. To think that 
 you should be all revelling this very moment in green-peas 
 and cauliflowers. I hope you don't forget your grace be- 
 fore dinner. 
 
 I will write to you again before setting sail for Spitz- 
 bergen. 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE " MONITEUR OF THE 31 ST JULY. 
 
 I HAVE received a copy of the " Moniteur " of the 31st 
 July, containing so graphic an account of the voyage of tlie 
 " Reine Hortense^'' towards Jan Mayen, and of the catas- 
 trophe to her tender the " Saxon,'^ — in consequence of 
 which tlie corvette was compelled to abandon her voyage 
 to the Northward, — that I must forward it to you. 
 
 {Translatio7t.) 
 
 '* Voyage of Discovery along the Banquise^ north of Iceland^ 
 by ' La Reine Hortense.' 
 
 " It fell to the lot of an officer of the French navy, M. 
 Jules de Blosseville, to attempt to explore those distant 
 parts, and to shed an interest over them, both by his dis- 
 coveries and by his tragical and premature end. 
 
 "In the spring of 1833, o^^ the breaking up of a frost, 
 ^ La Lilloise,^ under the command of that brave officer, 
 succeeded in passing through the Banquise, nearly up to 
 latitude 69°, and in surveying about thirty leagues of coast 
 to the south of that latitude. After having returned to her 
 anchorage off the coast of Iceland, he sailed again in July 
 for a second attempt. From that time nothing has been 
 heard of ' La Lilloise' 
 
 " The following year the ' Bordelaise ' was sent to look 
 for the * Lilloise^ but found the whole north of Iceland 
 
 15? 
 
154 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [IX. 
 
 blocked up by ice-fields ; and returned, having been stop- 
 ped in the latitude of the North Cape. 
 
 J(, Jf. Ji. Jt. JE- Jt 4fc 
 
 ^ ^ -yf w -yf VT w 
 
 As a voyage to the Danish colonies on the western coast 
 of Greenland formed part of the scheme of our arctic navi- 
 gation, we were aware at our departure from Paris, that it 
 was our business to make ourselves well acquainted with 
 the southern part of the ice-field, from Reykjavik to Cape 
 Farewell. But while we were touching at Peterhead, the 
 principal port for the fitting of vessels destined for the seal 
 fishery, the Prince, and M. de la Ronciere, Commander of 
 ''La Reine Hortense,^ gathered — from conversations with 
 the fishermen just returned from their spring expedition — • 
 some important information on the actual state of the ice. 
 They learnt from them that navigation was completely 
 free this year round the whole of Iceland ; that the ice- 
 field resting on Jan Mayen Island, and surrounding it to 
 a distance of about twenty leagues, extended down the 
 south-west along the coast of Greenland, but without block- 
 ing up the channel which separates that coast from that of 
 Iceland. These unhoped-for circumstances opened a new 
 field to our explorations, by allowing us to survey all 
 that part of the Banquise which extends to the north of 
 Iceland,, thus forming a continuation to the observations 
 made by the ^ Recherche,^ and to those which we ourselves 
 intended to make during our voyage to Greenland. The 
 temptation was too great for the Prince ; and Commander 
 de la Ronciere was not a man to allow an opportunity to 
 escape for executing a project which presented itself to him 
 with the character of daring and novelty. 
 
 But the difficulties of the enterprise were serious and of 
 such a nature that no one but a sailor experienced in navi- 
 gation is capable of appreciating. The ' Reine Horiense ' 
 is a charming pleasure-boat, but she offers very few of the 
 requisites for a long voyage, and she was destitute of 
 
IX.] EXTRA CT FROM THE " MONITE URr 1 5 5 
 
 all the special equipment indispensable for a long sojourn 
 in the ice. There was room but for six days' coals, and 
 for three* weeks' water. As to the sails, one may say 
 the masts of the corvette are merely for show, and that 
 without steam it would be impossible to reckon on her 
 making any way regularly and uninterruptedly. Add to 
 this, that she is built of iron, — that is to say, an iron sheet 
 of about two centimetres thick constitutes all her plank- 
 ing, — and that her deck — divided into twelve great panels, 
 is so weak that it has been thought incapable of carrying 
 guns proportioned to her tonnage. Those who have seen 
 the massive vessels of the fishermen of Peterhead, their 
 enormous outside planking, their bracings and fastenings in 
 wood and in iron, and their internal knees and stancheons 
 may form an idea from such precautions — imposed by long- 
 experience of the nature of the dangers that the shock — or 
 even the pressure of the ice — may cause to a ship in the 
 
 latitudes that we were going to explore. 
 
 # # # # * 
 
 The ' Oocyte ' had also been placed at the disposal of H. 
 I. H. Prince Napoleon. This vessel which arrived at 
 Reykjavik the same day that we did, the 30th of June — is 
 a steam schooner, with paddles, standing the sea well, 
 carrying coals for twelve days, but with a deplorably slow 
 rate of speed. 
 
 We found besides at Reykjavik the war transport ''La 
 Perdrix'' 2J\di two English merchant steamers, the ''Tas- 
 mania ' and the ' Saxon^' freighted by the Admiralty to take 
 to Iceland coals necessary for our voyage to Greenland. 
 These five vessels, with the frigate ' Artemise,' which per- 
 formed the duties of guardship, formed the largest squadron 
 which had ever assembled in the harbor of the capital of 
 Iceland. 
 
 Unfortunately, these varied and numerous elements 
 had nothing in common, and Commodore de la Ronciere 
 
156 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [IX. 
 
 soon saw that extraneous help would afford us no addi- 
 tional security ; and, in short, that the ' Reine Hortense' — - 
 obliged to go fast — as her short supplies would not allow 
 long voyages, had to reckon on herself alone. However, 
 the [English] captain of the ^ Saxoii' expressing a great 
 desire to visit these northern parts, and displaying on this 
 subject a sort of national vanity, besides promising ari 
 average speed of seven knots an hour, it was decided that 
 — at all events, that vessel should start alone with the 
 ^ Reine Hortense,^ whose supply of coals it would be able 
 to replenish, in the event — a doubtful one, it is true — of 
 our making the coast of Jan Mayen's Island, and finding a 
 good anchorage. The ^ Reine Hortense^^ had — by the help 
 of a supplementary load on deck — a supply of coals for 
 eight days ; and immediately on starting, the crew as well 
 as the passengers, were to be put on a measured allowance 
 of water. 
 
 A few hours before getting under way, the expedition 
 was completed by the junction of a new companion, quite 
 unexpected. We found in Reykjavik harbor a yacht be- 
 longing to Lord Dufferin. The Prince, seeing his great 
 desire to visit the neighborhood of Jay Mayen, offered to 
 take his schooner in tow of the '■ Reine Hortense.^ It was a 
 fortunate accident for a seeker of maritime adventures; and 
 an hour afterwards, the proposition having been eagerly 
 accepted, the Englishman was attached by two long cables 
 to the stern of our corvette. 
 
 On the 7th of July, 1856, at two o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, after a ball given by Commander de Mas on board the 
 * Artei7iise^ — the ' Reine Hortense^ with the English schooner 
 in tow, left Reykjavik harbor, directing her course along 
 the west coast of Iceland, towards Onundarfiord, where we 
 were to join the ^ Saxon ^ which had left a few hours before 
 us. At nine o'clock, the three vessels, steering east-north- 
 east, doubled the point of Cape North. At noon our ob- 
 
IX.] EXTRACT FROM THE '' MONITEUR." 157 
 
 servation of the latitude placed us about 67^ We had just 
 crossed the Arctic circle: The temperature was that of a 
 fine spring day, 10° centigrade (50° Farenh.). 
 
 ^ TT w ^ ^ 
 
 The ^ Reine Hortense^ diminished her speed. A rope 
 thrown across one of the towing-ropes enabled Lord Daf- 
 ferin to haul one of his boats to our corvette. He himself 
 came to dine with us, and to be present at the ceremony 
 of crossing the polar circle. As to the ' Saxon^' M. de la 
 Ronciere perceived by this time that the worthy English- 
 man had presumed too much on his power. The ^ Saxon ' 
 was evidently incapable of following us. The captain, 
 therefore, made her signal that she was to take her own 
 course, to try and reach Jan Mayen ; and if she could not 
 succeed, to direct her course on Onundarfiord, and there 
 to wait for us. The English vessel fell rapidly astern, her 
 hull disappeared, then her sails, and in the evening every 
 trace of her smoke had faded from the horizon. 
 
 #^ .A£. ^ ^ 
 
 •TV* ■^ TT TT 
 
 In the evening, the temperature grew gradually colder ; 
 that of the water underwent a more rapid and significant 
 change. At twelve at night it was only three degrees centig. 
 (about 37° Fahr.). At that moment the vessel plunged 
 into a bank of fog, the intensity of which we were enabled 
 to ascertain, from the continuance of daylight in these lati- 
 tudes at this time of the year. There are tokens that leave 
 no room to doubt that we are approaching the solid ice. 
 True enough : — at two o'clock in the morning the officer 
 on watch sees close to the ship a herd of seals, inhabitants 
 of the field ice. A few minutes later the fog clears up 
 suddenly ; a ray of sunshine gilds the surface of the sea, 
 lighting up millions of patches of sparkling white, extend- 
 ing to the farthest limit of the horizon. These are the de- 
 tached hummocks which precede and announce the field 
 ice ; they increase in size and in number as we proceed, 
 
158 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [I X. 
 
 At three o'clock in the afternoon we find ourselves in froni 
 of a large pack which blocks up the sea before us. We 
 are obliged to change our course to extricate ourselves 
 from the ice that surrounds us. 
 
 This is an evolution requiring on the part of the com- 
 mander the greatest precision of eye, and a perfect knowl- 
 edge of his ship. The '■ Reine Hortense^' going half speed, 
 with all the officers and the crew on deck, orlides along: be- 
 tween the blocks of ice, some of which she seems almost to 
 touch, and the smallest of which would sink her instantly 
 if a collision took place. Another danger, which it is al- 
 most impossible to guard against, threatens a vessel in those 
 trying moments. If a piece of ice gets under the screw, it 
 will be inevitably smashed like glass, and the consequences 
 of such an accident might be fatal. 
 
 The little English schooner follows us bravely; bound- 
 ing in our track, and avoiding only by a constant watch- 
 fulness and incessant attention to the helm the icebergs 
 that we have cleared. 
 
 But the difficulties of this navigation are nothing in 
 clear weather, as compared to what they are in a fog. 
 Then, notwithstanding the slowness of the speed, it re- 
 quires as much luck as skill to avoid collisions. Thus it 
 happened that after having escaped the ice a first time, and 
 having steered E.N.E., we found ourselves suddenly, tow- 
 ards two o'clock of that same day (the 9th), not further 
 than a quarter of a mile from the field ice which the fog 
 had hidden from us. Generally speaking, the Banquise 
 that we coasted along for three days, and that we traced 
 with the greatest care for nearly a hundred leagues, pre- 
 sented to us an irregular line of margin, running from 
 W.S.W. to E.N.E., and thrusting forward toward the south 
 —capes and promontories of various sizes, and serrated 
 like the teeth of a saw. Every time that we bore up for 
 E.N.E., we soon found ourselves in one of the gulfs of ice 
 
IX.] EXTRACT FROM THE '' MONITEURr 159 
 
 formed by the indentations of the Banqidse. It was only 
 by steering to the S.W. that we got free from the floating 
 icebergs, to resume our former course as soon as the sea 
 was clear. 
 
 The further we advanced to the northward, the thicker 
 became the fog and more intense the cold (two degrees 
 centig. below zero); and snow whirled round in squalls of 
 wind, and fell in large flakes on the deck. The ice began 
 to present a new aspect, and to assume those fantastic and 
 terrible forms and colors, which painters have made famil- 
 iar to us. At one time it assumed the appearance of 
 mountain-peaks covered with snow, furrowed with valleys 
 of green and blue ; more frequently they appeared like a 
 wide flat plateau, as high as the ship's deck, against which 
 the sea rolled with fury, hollowing its edges into gulfs, or 
 breaking them into perpendicular cliffs or caverns, into 
 which the sea rushed in clouds of foam. 
 
 We often passed close by a herd of seals, which — 
 stretched on these floating islands, followed the ship with 
 a stupid and puzzled look. We were forcibly struck with 
 the contrast between the ficticious world in which we lived 
 on board the ship, and the terrible realities of nature that 
 surrounded us. Lounging in an elegant saloon, at the 
 corner of a clear and sparkling fire, amidst a thousand 
 objects of the arts and luxuries of home, we might have 
 believed that we had not changed our residence, or our 
 habits, or our enjoyments. One of Strauss's waltzes, or 
 Schubert's melodies — played on the piano by the band- 
 master — completed the illusion ; and yet we had only to 
 rub off the thin incrustation of frozen vapor that covered 
 the panes of the windows, to look out upon the gigantic 
 and terrible forms of the icebergs dashed against each 
 other by a black and broken sea, and the whole panorama 
 of Polar nature, its awful risks, and its sinister splendors. 
 
l6o LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [IX. 
 
 Meanwhile, we progressed but very slowly. On the 
 loth of July we were still far from the meridian of Jan 
 Mayen, when we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by 
 a fog, and at the bottom of one of the bays formed by the 
 field of ice. We tacked immediately, and put the ship about, 
 but the wind had accumulated the ice behind us. At a 
 distance the circle that enclosed us seemed compact and 
 without egress. We considered this as the most critical 
 moment of our expedition. Having tried this icy barrier 
 at several points, we found a narrow and tortuous channel, 
 into which we ventured ; and it was not till after an hour 
 of anxieties that we got a view of the open sea, and of a 
 passage into it. From this moment we were able to coast 
 along the Banqiiise without interruption. 
 
 On the nth of July at 6 a. m. we reached, at last, the 
 meridian of Jay Mayen, at about eighteen leagues'^ distance 
 from the southern part of that island, but we saw the ice- 
 field stretching out before us as far as the eye could reach ; 
 hence it became evident that Jan Mayen was blocked up 
 by the ice, at least along its south coast. To ascertain 
 whether it might still be accessible from the north, itw^ould 
 have been necessary to have attempted a circuit to the 
 eastward, the possible extent of which could not be esti- 
 mated j moreover, we had consumed half our coals, and 
 had lost all hope of being rejoined by the ' Saxon.^ Thus 
 forced to give up any further attempt in that direction, 
 Commodore de la Ronciere, having got the ship clear of 
 the floating ice, took a W.S.W. course, in the direction of 
 Reykjavik. 
 
 The instant the '• Relne Hortense'' assumed this new 
 course, a telegraphic signal — :as had been previously ar- 
 ranged — acquainted Lord Dufferin with our determina- 
 
 I I tlaink there must be some mistake here ; when we parted com- 
 pany with the " Reine Hortense^'' we were still upward of lOO miles 
 distant from the southern extremity of Jan Mayen. 
 
IX.] EXTRA CT FROM THE " MONITE UR:' 1 6 1 
 
 tions. Almost immediately, the young Lord sent on board 
 us a tin box, with two letters, one for his mother, and one 
 for our commander. In the latter he stated that — finding 
 himself clear of the ice, and master of his own movements 
 — he preferred continuing his voyage alone, uncertain 
 whether he should at once push for Norway, or return to 
 Scotland.^ The two ropes that united the vessels were 
 then cast off, a farewell hurrah was given, and in a mo- 
 ment the English schooner was lost in the fog. 
 
 Our return to Reykjavik afforded no incident worth no- 
 tice; the *" Reine Hortense'' keeping her course outside the 
 ice, encountered no impediment, except from the intense 
 fogs, which forced her — from the impossibility of ascertain- 
 ing her position — to lie to, and anchor off the cape during 
 part of the day and night of the 13th. 
 
 On the morning of the 14th, as we were getting out at 
 the Dyre Fiord, where we had anchored, we met — to our 
 great astonishment — the ' Cocyte^ proceeding northward. 
 Her commander, Sonnart, informed us that on the evening 
 of the 12th, the ' Saxon ' — in consequence of the injuries 
 she had received, had been forced back to Reykjavik. 
 She had hardly reached the ice on the 9th, when she came 
 into collision with it ; five of her timbers had been stove 
 in, and an enormous leak had followed. Becoming water- 
 logged, she was run ashore, the first time at Onundarfiord, 
 and again in Reykjavik roads, whither she had been 
 brought with the greatest difficulty." 
 
 ^ I was purposely vague as to my plans, lest you might learn we 
 still Intended to go on. 
 
 II 
 
LETTER X. 
 
 BUCOLICS THE GOAT — MAID MARIAN ^A LAPP LADY — LAPP 
 
 LOVE-MAKING— THE SEA-HORSEMAN— THE GULF STREAM 
 
 ^ARCTIC CURRENTS A DINGY EXPEDITION — -A SCHOOL 
 
 OF PERIPATETIC FISHES ^ALTEN THE CHATELAINE OF 
 
 K\AFIORD — STILL NORTHWARD HO ! 
 
 Alten, July 27 th. 
 This letter ought to be an Eclogue, so pastoral a life 
 have we been leading lately among these pleasant Nordland 
 valleys. Perhaps it is only the unusual sight of meadows, 
 trees, and flowers, after the barren sea, and still more bar- 
 ren lands we have been accustomed to, that invests this 
 neighborhood with such a smiling character. Be that as 
 it may, the change has been too grateful not to have made 
 us seriously reflect on our condition ; and we have at last 
 determined that not even the envious ocean shall for the 
 future cut us off from the pleasures of a shepherd life. 
 Henceforth, the boatswain is no longer to be the only 
 swain on board ! We have purchased an ancient goat — a 
 nanny-goat — so we may be able to go a-milking upon oc- 
 casion. Mr. Webster, late of her Majesty's Foot-guards, 
 carpenter, etc., takes brevet-rank as dairy-maid ; and our 
 venerable passenger is at this moment being inducted into 
 a sumptuous barrel ^ which I have had fitted up for her re- 
 
 1 The cask in question was bought in order to be rigged up event- 
 ually into a crow's-nest, as soon as we should again find ourselves 
 among the ice. 
 
X.] A LAPP LADY. 165 
 
 ception abaft the binnacle. A spacious meadow of sweet- 
 scented hay has been laid down in a neighboring corner 
 for her further accommodation ; and the Doctor is tuning 
 up his flageolet, in order to complete the bucolic character 
 of the scene. The only personage amongst us at all dis- 
 concerted by these arrangements is the little white fox 
 which has come with us from Iceland. Whether he con- 
 siders the admission on board of so domestic an animal to 
 be a reflection on his own wild Viking habits, I cannot 
 say ; but there is no impertinence — even to the nibbling of 
 her beard when she is asleep — of which he is not guilty 
 towards the poor old thing, who passes the greater part of 
 her mornings in gravely butting at her irreverent tor- 
 mentor. 
 
 But I must relate our last week's proceeding in a more 
 orderly manner. 
 
 As soon as the anchor was let go in Hammerfest har- 
 bor, we went ashore ; and having first ascertained that the 
 existence of a post does not necessarily imply letters, we 
 turned away, a little disappointed, to examine the metropo- 
 lis of Finmark. A nearer inspection did not improve the 
 impression its first appearance had made upon us ; and 
 the odor of rancid cod-liver oil, which seemed indiscrimin- 
 ately to proceed from every building in the town, including 
 the church, has irretrievably confirmed us in our prejudices. 
 Nevertheless, henceforth the place will have one redeeming 
 association connected with it, which I am bound to men- 
 tion. It was in the streets of Hammerfest that I first set 
 eyes on a Laplander. Turning round the corner of one of 
 the ill-built houses, we suddenly ran over a diminutive little 
 personage in a white woollen tunic, bordered with red and 
 yellow stripes, green trousers, fastened round the ankles, 
 and reindeer boots, curving up at the toes like Turkish 
 slippers. On her head — for notwithstanding the trousers, 
 she turned out to be a lady — was perched a gay parti- 
 
i66 
 
 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
 
 [X. 
 
 colored cap, fitting close round the face, and running up 
 at the back into an overarching peak of red cloth. Within 
 this peak was crammed — as I afterwards learnt — a jDiece 
 
 A LAPP LADY. 
 
 of hollow wood, weighing about a quarter of a pound, into 
 which is fitted the wearer's back hair ; so that perhaps, 
 after all, there does exist a more inconvenient coiffure that 
 a Paris bonnet. 
 
 Hardly had we taken off our hats, and bowed a thou- 
 sand apologies for our unintentional rudeness to the fair 
 inhabitant of the green trousers, before a couple of Lapp 
 gentlemen hove in sight. They were dressed pretty much 
 like their companion, except that an ordinary red night- 
 
X.] 
 
 LAPP GENTLEMEN. 
 
 167 
 
 cap replaced the queer helmet worn by the lady ; and the 
 knife and sporran fastened to their belts, instead of being 
 suspended in front as hers were, hung down against their 
 hips. Their tunics, too, may have been a trifle shorter. 
 None of the three were beautiful. High cheek-bones, 
 short noses, oblique Mongol eyes, no eyelashes, and enor- 
 mous mouths, composed a cast of features which their 
 
 A. LAPP lady's bonnet. 
 
 burnt-sienna complexion, and hair like ill-got-in hay did 
 not much enhance. The expression of their countenances 
 was not unintelligent ; and there was a merry, half-timid, 
 half-cunning twinkle in their eyes, which reminded me a 
 little of faces I had met with in the more neglected dis- 
 tricts of Ireland. Some ethnologists, indeed, are inclined 
 to reckon the Laplanders as a branch of the Celtic family. 
 Others, again, maintain them to be Ugrians ; while a few 
 pretend to discover a relationship between the Lapp lan- 
 guage and the dialects of the Australian savages, and sirai- 
 
1 68 LEISTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [X. 
 
 lar outsiders of the human family ; alleging that as succes- 
 sive stocks bubbled up from the central birthplace of man- 
 kind in Asia, the earlier and inferior races were gradually 
 driven outwards in concentric circles, like the rings pro- 
 duced by the throwing of a stone into a pond ; and that 
 consequently, those who dwell in the uttermost ends of the 
 earth are, ipso facto ^ first cousins. 
 
 This relationship with the Polynesian Niggers, the 
 native genealogists would probably scout with indignation, 
 being perfectly persuaded of the extreme gentility of their 
 descent. Their only knowledge of the patriarch Noah is 
 as a personage who derives his principal claim to notoriety 
 from having been the first Lapp. Their acquaintance with 
 any sacred history — nay, with Christianity at all — is very 
 limited. It was not until after the thirteenth century that 
 an attempt was made to convert them ; and although 
 Charles the Fourth and Gustavus ordered portions of 
 Scripture to be translated in Lappish, to this very day a 
 great proportion of the race are pagans ; and even the 
 most illuminated amongst them remain slaves to the gross- 
 est superstition. When a couple is to be married, if a 
 priest happens to be in the way, they will send for him 
 perhaps out of complaisance ; but otherwise, the young 
 lady's papa merely strikes a flint and steel together, and 
 the ceremony is not less irrevocably completed. When 
 they die, a hatchet and a flint and steel are invariably 
 buried with the defunct, in case he should find himself 
 chilly on his long journey — an unnecessary precaution, 
 many of the orthodox would consider, on the part of such 
 lax religionists. When they go boar-hunting — the most 
 important business in their lives — it is a sorcerer, with no 
 other defence than his incantations, who marches at the 
 head of the procession. In the internal arrangements of 
 their tents, it is not a room to themselves, but a door to 
 themselves, that they assign to their womankind \ for woe 
 
X.] HABITS OF THE LAPS. 169 
 
 betide the hunter if a woman has crossed the threshold 
 over which he sallies to the chase ; and for three days after 
 the slaughter of his prey he must live apart from the female 
 portion of his family in order to appease the evil deity 
 whose familiar he is supposed to have destroyed. It would 
 be endless to recount the innumerable occasions upon 
 which the ancient rites of Jumala are still interpolated 
 among the Christian observances they profess to have 
 adopted. 
 
 Their manner of life I had scarcely any opportunities 
 of observing. Our Consul kindly undertook to take us to 
 one of their encampments ; but they flit so often from place 
 to place, it is very difficult to light upon them. Here and 
 there, as we cruised about among the fiords, blue wreaths 
 of smoke rising from some little green nook among the 
 rocks would betray their temporary place of abode ; but I 
 never got a near view of a regular settlement. 
 
 In the summer-time they live in canvas tents : during 
 winter, when the snow is on the ground, the forest Lapps 
 build huts in the branches of trees, and so roost like birds. 
 The principal tent is of an hexagonal form, with a fire in 
 the centre, whose smoke rises through a hole in the roof. 
 The gentlemen and ladies occupy different sides of the 
 same apartment ; but a long pole laid along the ground 
 midway between them symbolizes an ideal partition, which 
 I dare say is in the end as effectual a defence as lath and 
 plaster prove in more civilized countries. At all events, 
 the ladies have a doorway quite to themselves, which, 
 doubtless, they consider a far greater privilege than the se- 
 clusion ot a separate boudoir. Hunting and fishing are the 
 principal employments of the Lapp tribes ; and to slay a bear 
 is the most honorable exploit a Lapp hero can achieve. The 
 flesh of the slaughtered beast becomes the property — not 
 of the man who killed him, but of him who discovered his 
 trail, and the skin is hung up on a pole, for the wives of all 
 
170 LE TTERS FR OM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [X. 
 
 who took part in the expedition to shoot at with their eyes 
 bandaged. Fortunate is she whose arrow pierces the 
 trophy, — not only does it become her prize, but, in the eyes 
 of the whole settlement, her husband is looked upon thence- 
 forth as the most fortunate of men. As long as the chase 
 is going on, the women are not allowed to stir abroad ; but 
 as soon as the party have safely brought home their booty, 
 the whole female population issue from their tents, and 
 having deliberately chewed some bark of a species of alder, 
 they spit the red juice into their husband's faces, typifying 
 thereby the bear's blood which has been shed in the hon- 
 orable encounter. 
 
 Although the forests, the rivers, and the sea supply 
 them in a great measure with their food, it is upon the rein- 
 deer that the Laplander is dependent for every other com- 
 fort in life. The reindeer is his estate, his horse, his cow, 
 his companion, and friend. He has twenty-two different 
 names for him. His coat, trousers, and shoes are made of 
 reindeer's skin, stitched with thread manufactured from the 
 nerves and sinews of the reindeer. Reindeer milk is the 
 most important item in his diet. Out of reindeer horns are 
 made almost all the utensils used in his domestic economy ; 
 and it is the reindeer that carries his baggage, and drags 
 his sledge. But the beauty of this animal is by no means 
 on a par with his various moral and physical endowments. 
 His antlers, indeed, are magnificent, branching back to the 
 length of three or four feet ; but his body is poor and 
 his limbs thick and ungainly ; neither is his pace quite so 
 rapid as is generally supposed. The Laplanders count dis- 
 tances by the number of horizons they have traversed ; and 
 if a reindeer changes the horizon three times during the 
 twenty-four hours, it is thought a good day's work. More- 
 over, so just an appreciation has the creature of what is due 
 to his own great merit, that if his owner seeks to tax him 
 beyond his strength, he not only becomes restive, but some- 
 
X.] LAPP LOVE-MAKING. 171 
 
 times actually turns upon the inconsiderate Jehu who has 
 over-driven him. When, therefore, a Lapp is in a great 
 hurry, instead of taking to his sledge, he puts on a pair of 
 skates exactly twice as long as his own body, and so flies 
 on the W'ings of the wind. 
 
 Every Laplander, however poor, has his dozen or two 
 dozen deer ; and the flocks of a Lapp Croesus amount 
 sometimes to two thousand head. As soon as a young 
 lady is born — after having been duly rolled in the snow — 
 she is dowered by her father with a certain number of deer, 
 which are immediately branded with her initials, and thence- 
 forth kept apart as her especial property. In proportion 
 as they increase and multiply does her chance improve of 
 making a good match. Lapp courtships are conducted 
 pretty much in the same fashion as in other parts of the 
 world. The aspirant, as soon as he discovers that he has 
 lost his heart, goes off in search of a friend and a bottle of 
 brandy. The friend enters the tent, and opens simulta- 
 neously — the brandy — and his business ; while the lover 
 remains outside, engaged in hewing wood, or some other 
 menial employment. If, after the brandy and the proposal 
 have been duly discussed, the eloquence of his friend pre- 
 vails, he is himself called into the conclave, and the 
 young people are allowed to rub noses. The bride then 
 accepts from her suitor a present of a reindeer's tongue, 
 and the espousals are considered concluded. The marriage 
 does not take place for two or three years afterwards ; and 
 during the interval the intended is obliged to labor in the 
 service of his father-in-law, as diligently as Jacob served 
 Laban for the sake of his long-loved Rachel. 
 
 I cannot better conclude this summary of what I have 
 been able to learn about the honest Lapps, than by sending 
 you the tourist's stock specimen of a Lapp love-ditty. 
 The author is supposed to be hastening in his sledge to- 
 wards the home of his adored one : — - 
 
172 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA . ""I TUBES. [X. 
 
 " Hasten, Kulnasatz ! my little reindeer ! long is the way, and 
 boundless are the marshes. Swift are we, and light of foot, and soon 
 we shall have come to whither we are speeding. There shall I behold 
 my fair one pacing. Kulnasatz, my reindeer, look forth ! look around ! 
 Dost thou not see her somewhere — bathing ? " 
 
 As soon as we had thoroughly looked over the Lapp 
 lady and her companions, a process to which they submit- 
 ted with the greatest complacency, we proceeded to inspect 
 the other lions of the town ; the church, the lazar-house, — 
 principally occupied by Lapps, — the stock fish establish- 
 ment, and the hotel. But a very few hours were sufficient 
 to exhaust the pleasures of Hammerfest ; so having bought 
 an extra suit of jerseys for my people, and laid in a supply 
 of other necessaries, likely to be useful in our cruise to 
 Spitzbergen, we exchanged dinners with the Consul, a 
 transaction by which, I fear, he got the worst of the bar- 
 gain, and then got under way for this place, — Alten. 
 
 The very day we left Hammerfest our hopes of being 
 able to get to Spitzbergen at all — received a tremendous 
 shock. We had just sat down to dinner, and I was help- 
 ing the Consul to fish, when in comes Wilson, his face, 
 as usual, upside down, and hisses something into the Doc- 
 tor's ear. Ever since the famous dialogue which had taken 
 place between them on the subject of sea-sickness, Wilson 
 had got to look upon Fitz as in some sort his legitimate 
 prey ; and v/henever the burden of his own misgivings be- 
 came greater than he could bear, it was to the Doctor that 
 he unbosomed himself. On this occasion, I guessed, by 
 the look of gloomy triumph in his eyes, that some great 
 calamity had occurred, and it turned out that the following 
 was the agreeable announcement he had been in such 
 haste to make : "Do you know. Sir?" — This was always 
 the preface to tidings unusually doleful. " No — what ? " 
 said the Doctor, breathless. "Oh nothing, Sir; only t^\o 
 sloops have just arrived, Sir, from Spitzbergen, Sir — where 
 
X.] THE SEA-HORSEMAN. 
 
 73 
 
 they couldn't get, Sir ; — such a precious lot of ice — two 
 hundred miles from the land — and, oh, Sir — they've come 
 back with all their bows stove in ! " Now, immediately on 
 arriving at Hammerfest, my first care had been to inquire 
 how the ice was lying this year to the northward, and I had 
 certainly been told that the season was a very bad one, 
 and that the most of the sloops that go every summer to 
 kill sea-horses (/. e.^ walrus) at Spitzbergen, being unable 
 to reach the land, had returned empty-handed ; but as three 
 weeks of better weather had intervened since their discom- 
 fiture, I had quite reassured myself with the hope that in 
 the mean time the advance of the season might have 
 opened for us a passage to the island. 
 
 This news of Wilson's quite threw me on my back 
 again. The only consolation was, that probably it was not 
 true ; so immediately after dinner we boarded the honest 
 Sea-horseman who was reported to have brought the dis- 
 mal intelligence. He turned out to be a very cheery in- 
 telligent fellow of about five-and-thirty, six feet high, with 
 a dashing " devil-may-care " manner that completely im- 
 posed upon me. Charts were got out, and the whole state 
 of the case laid before me in the clearest manner. Noth- 
 ing could be more unpromising. The sloop had quitted 
 the ice but eight-and-forty hours before making the Nor- 
 way coast ; she had not been able even to reach Bear 
 Island. Two hundred miles of ice lay off the southern 
 and western coast of Spitzbergen — (the eastern side is al- 
 ways blocked up with ice) — and then bent round in a con- 
 tinuous semicircle towards Jan Mayen. That they had not 
 failed for want of exertion — the bows of his ships suffi- 
 ciently testified. As to our getting there it was out of the 
 question. So spake the Sea-horseman. On returning on 
 board the " Foam " I gave myself up to the most gloomy 
 reflections. This, then, was to be the result of all my 
 preparations and long-meditated schemes. What likeli- 
 
174 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [X. 
 
 hood was there of success, after so unfavorable a verdict ? 
 Ipse dixit, eqiciis marinics. It is true the horse-marines 
 have hitherto been considered a mythic corps, but my 
 friend was too substantial looking for me to doubt his ex- 
 istence; and unless I was to ride off on the proverbial 
 credulity of the other branch of that amphibious profes- 
 sion, I had no reason to question his veracity. Neverthe- 
 less, I felt it would not become a gentleman to turn back 
 at the first blush of discouragement. If it were possible 
 to reach Spitzbergen, I was determined to do so. I reflect- 
 ed that every day that passed was telling in our favor. It 
 was not yet the end of July ; even in these latitudes winter 
 does not commence much before September,, and in the 
 mean time the tail of the Gulf Stream would still be wear- 
 ing a channel in the ice towards the pole ; so, however 
 unpromising might be the prospect, I determined, at all 
 events, that we should go and see for ourselves how matters 
 really stood. 
 
 But I must explain to you why I so counted upon the 
 assistance of the Gulf Stream to help us through. 
 
 The entire configuration of the Arctic ice is determined 
 by the action of that mysterious current on its edges. 
 Several theories have been advanced to account for its in- 
 fluence in so remote a region. I give you one which ap- 
 pears to me reasonable. It is supposed, that in obedi- 
 ence to that great law of Nature which seeks to establish 
 equilibrium in the temperature of fluids, — a vast body of 
 gelid water is continually mounting from the Antarctic, to 
 displace and regenerate the over-heated oceans of the tor- 
 rid zone. Bounding up against the west side of South 
 America, the ascending stream skirts the coasts of Chili 
 and Peru, and is then deflected in a westerly direction 
 across the Pacific Ocean, where it takes the name of the 
 Equatorial Current. Having completely encircled Austra- 
 lia, it enters the Indian Sea, sweeps up round the Cape of 
 
X.] THE GULF STREAM. 175 
 
 Good Hope, and, crossing the Atlantic, twists into the 
 Gulf of Mexico. Here its flagging energies are suddenly- 
 accelerated in consequence of the narrow limits within 
 which it finds itself compressed. So marvellous does the 
 velocity of the current now become, so complete its isola- 
 tion from the deep sea bed it traverses, that by the time it 
 issues again into the Atlantic, its hitherto diffused and 
 loitering waters are suddenly concentrated into what Lieu- 
 tenant Maury has happily called — " a river in the ocean," 
 swifter and of greater volume than either the Mississippi 
 or the Amazon. Surging forth between the interstices of 
 the Bahamas, that stretch like a weir across its mouth, it 
 cleaves asunder the Atlantic. So distinct is its individu- 
 ality, that one side of a vessel will be scoured by its warm 
 indigo-colored water, while the other is floating in the pale, 
 stagnant, weed-encumbered brine of the Mar de Sargasso 
 of the Spaniards. It is not only by color, by its tempera- 
 ture, by its motion, that this " pori ^Qxiwmho " is distinguish- 
 ed ; its very surface is arched upwards some way above 
 the ordinary sea-level toward the centre, by the lateral 
 pressure of the elastic liquid banks between which it flows. 
 Impregnated with the warmth of tropic climes, the Gulf 
 Stream — as it has now come to be called, — then pours its 
 genial floods across the North Atlantic, laving the western 
 coasts of Britain, Ireland, and Norway, and investing each 
 shore it strikes upon, with a climate far milder than that 
 enjoyed by other lands situated in the same latitudes. Ar- 
 rived abreast of the North Cape, the impetus of the cur- 
 rent is in a great measure exhausted. 
 
 From causes similar (though of less efficacy, in conse- 
 quence of the smaller area occupied by water) to those 
 which originally gave birth to the ascending energy of the 
 Antarctic waters, a gelid current is also generated in the 
 Arctic Ocean, which, descending in a south-westerly direc- 
 tion, encounters the already faltering Gulf Stream in the 
 
176 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [X. 
 
 space between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. A contest 
 for the mastery ensues, which is eventually terminated by 
 a compromise. The warmer stream, no longer quite able 
 to hold its own, splits into two branches, the one squeezing 
 itself round the North Cape, as far as that Varangar Fiord 
 which Russia is supposed so much to covet, while the oth- 
 er is pushed up in a more northerly direction along the 
 west coast of Spitzbergen. But although it has power to 
 split up the Gulf Stream for a certain distance, the Arctic 
 current is ultimately unable to cut across it, and the result 
 is an accumulation of ice to the south of Spitzbergen in 
 the angle formed by the bifurcation, as Mr. Grote would 
 call it, of the warmer current. 
 
 It is quite possible, therefore, that the north-west ex- 
 extremity of Spitzbergen may be comparatively clear, 
 while the whole of its southern coasts are enveloped in 
 belts of ice of enormous extent. It was on this contin- 
 gency that we built our hopes, and determined to prose- 
 cute our voyage, in spite of the discouraging report of the 
 Norse skipper. 
 
 About eight o'clock in the evening we got under way 
 from Hammerfest ; unfortunately the wind almost immedi- 
 ately after fell dead calm, and during the whole night we 
 lay " like a painted ship upon a painted ocean." At six 
 o'clock a little breeze sprung up, and when we came on 
 deck at breakfast time, the schooner was skimaning at the 
 rate of five knots an hour over the level lanes of water, 
 which lie between the silver-grey ridges of gneiss and mica 
 slate that hem in the Nordland shore. The distance from 
 Hammerfest to Alten is about forty miles, along a zigzag 
 chain of fiords. It was six o'clock in the evening, and we 
 had already sailed two-and-thirty miles, when it again fell 
 almost calm. - Impatient at the unexpected delay, and 
 tempted by the beauty of the evening, — which was indeed 
 most lovely, the moon hanging on one side right opposite 
 
X.] A SCHOOL OF PERIPATETIC FISHES. 177 
 
 to the sun on the other, as in the picture of Joshua's mira- 
 cle, — Sigurdr, in an evil hour, proposed that we should take 
 a row in the dingy, until the midnight breeze should spring 
 up, and bring the schooner along with it. Away we went 
 and so occupied did we become with admiring the rocky 
 precipices beneath which we were gliding, that it was not 
 until the white sails of the motionless schooner had dwin- 
 dled to a speck, that we became aware of the distance we 
 had come. 
 
 Our attention had been further diverted by the specta- 
 cle of a tribe of fishes, whose habit it appeared to be — in- 
 stead of swimming like Christian fishes in a horizontal 
 position beneath the water — to walk upon their hind-legs 
 along its surface. Perceiving a little boat floating on the 
 loch not far from the spot where we had observed this 
 phenomenon, we pulled towards it, and ascertained that 
 the Lapp officer in charge was actually intent on stalking 
 the peripatetic school — to use a technical expression — ■ 
 whose evolutions had so much astonished us. The great 
 object of the sportsman is to judge by their last appear- 
 ance what part of the water the fish are likely to select for 
 the scene of their next promenade. Directly he has deter- 
 mined this in his own mind, he rows noiselessly to the 
 spot, and, as soon as they show themselves, hooks them 
 with a landing-net into his boat. 
 
 By this time it had become a doubtful point whether it 
 would not be as little trouble to row on to Alten as to re- 
 turn to the schooner, so we determined to go on. Unfor- 
 tunately we turned down a wrong fiord, and after a long 
 pull, about two o'clock in the morning had the satisfaction 
 of finding ourselves in a cul-de-sac. To add to our discom- 
 fort, clouds of mosquitoes with the bodies of behemoths 
 and the stings of dragons, had collected from all quarters 
 of the heavens to make a prey of us. In vain we strug- 
 gled — strove to knock them down with the oars, — plunged 
 
178 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [X. 
 
 our heads under the water, — smacked our faces with frantic 
 violence ; on they came in myriads, until I thought our 
 bleaching bones would alone remain to indicate our fate. 
 At last Sigurdr espied a log hut on the shore, where we 
 might at least find some one to put us into the right road 
 again ; but on looking in at die open door, we only saw a 
 Lapland gentleman fast asleep. Awaking at our approach, 
 he started to his feet, and though nothing could be more 
 gracefully conciliatory than the bow with which I opened 
 the conversation, I regret to say that after staring wildly 
 round for a few minutes, the aboriginal bolted straight 
 away in the most unpolite manner and left us to our fate. 
 There was nothing for it but patiently to turn back, and 
 try some other opening. This time we were more success- 
 ful, and about three o'clock, a. m., had the satisfaction of 
 landing at one of the wharves attached to the copper mines 
 of Kaafiord. We came upon a lovely scene. It was as 
 light and warm as a summer's noon in England ; upon a 
 broad plateau, carved by nature out of the side of the grey 
 limestone, stood a bright shining house in the middle of a 
 plot of rich English-looking garden. On one side lay the 
 narrow fiord, on every other rose an amphitheatre of fir- 
 clad mountains. The door of the house was open, so were 
 many of the windows — even those on the ground-floor, and 
 from the road where we stood we could see the books on 
 the library shelves. A swing and some gymnastic appli- 
 ances on the lawn told us that there were children. Alto- 
 gether, I thought I had never seen such a charming pic- 
 ture of silent comfort and security. Perhaps the barren 
 prospects we had been accustomed to made the little oasis 
 before us look more cheerful than we might otherwise have 
 thought it. 
 
 The question now arose, what was to be done ? My 
 principal reason for coming to Alten was to buy some salt 
 provisions and Lapland dresses ; but doHs and junk were 
 
X.J HOSPITALITY. 179 
 
 scarcely a sufficient pretext for knocking up a quiet family 
 at three o'clock in the morning. It is true, I happened to 
 
 have a letter for Mr. T- , written by a mutual friend, 
 
 who had expressly told me that — arrive when I might at 
 Alten, — the more unceremoniously I walked in and took 
 possession of the first unoccupied bed I stumbled on, the 
 better Mr. T-^ — would be pleased ; but British punctilio 
 would not allow me to act on the recommendation, though 
 we were sorely tried. In the meantime the mosquitoes 
 had become more intolerable than ever. At last, half mad 
 with irritation, I set oif straight up the side of the nearest 
 mountain, in hopes of attaining a zone too high for them 
 to inhabit ; and, poising myself upon its topmost pinnacle, 
 I drew my handkerchief over my head — I was already 
 without coat and waistcoat — and remained the rest of the 
 morning " mopping and mowing " at the world beneath my 
 feet. 
 
 About six o'clock, like a phantom in a dream, the little 
 schooner came stealing round the misty headland, and 
 anchored at the foot of the rocks below. Returning imme- 
 diately on board, we bathed, dressed, and found repose 
 from all our troubles. Not long after, a message from Mr. 
 
 T , in answer to a card I had sent up to the house as 
 
 soon as the household gave signs of being astir — invited us 
 to breakfast ; and about half past-nine we presented our- 
 selves at his hospitable door. The reception I met with 
 was exactly what the gentleman who had given me the 
 letter of introduction had led me to expect ; and so eager 
 
 did Mr. T seem to make us comfortable, that I did 
 
 not dare to tell him how we had been prowling about his 
 house the greater part of the previous night, lest he should 
 knock me down on the spot for not having knocked him 
 up. The appearance of the inside of the house quite cor- 
 responded with what we had antici^Dated from the soigne 
 air of everything about its exterior. Books, maps, pictures, 
 
l8o LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [X. 
 
 a number of astronomical instruments, geological speci- 
 mens, and a magnificent assortment of fishing-rods> be- 
 trayed the habits of the practical, well-educated, business- 
 loving English gentleman who inhabited it; and as he 
 sliowed me the various articles of interest in his study, 
 most heartily did I congratulate myself on the lucky chance 
 which had brought me into contact with so desirable an 
 acquaintance. 
 
 All this time we had seen nothing of the lady of the 
 house ; and I was just beginning to speculate as to whether 
 that crowning ornament could be wanting to this pleasant 
 home when the door at the further end of the room sud- 
 denly opened, and there glided out into the sushine — 
 " The White Lady of Avenel." A fairer apparition I have 
 seldom seen, — stately, pale, and fragile as a lily — blond 
 hair, that rippled round a forehead of ivory — a cheek of 
 waxen purity on which the fitful color went and came — 
 not with the flush of southern blood, or flower-bloom of 
 English beauty, — but rather with a cool radiance, as of 
 " northern streamers " on the snows of her native hills, — 
 eyes of a dusky blue, and lips of that rare tint which lines 
 the conch-shell. Such was the Chatelaine of Kaafiord, — • 
 as perfect a type of Norse beauty as ever my Saga lore had 
 conjured up ! Frithiof's Ingeborg herself seemed to stand 
 before me. A few minutes afterwards, two little fair-haired 
 maidens, like twin snow-drops, stole into the room ; and the 
 sweet home picture was complete. 
 
 The rest of the day has been a continued fete. In vain 
 after having transacted my business, I pleaded the turning 
 of the tide, and our anxiety to get away to sea ; nothing 
 would serve our kind entertainer but that we should stay 
 to dinner ; and his was one of those strong energetic wills 
 it is difficult to resist. 
 
 In the afternoon, the Hammerfest steamer called in 
 from the southward, and by her came two fair sisters of our 
 
X.] THE MAELSTROM. l8l 
 
 hostess from their father's home in one of the Loffodens 
 which overlook the famous Maelstrom. The stories about 
 
 the violence of the whirlpool Mr. T assures me are 
 
 ridiculously exaggerated. On ordinary occasions the site 
 Ol the supposed vortex is perfectly unruffled, and it is only 
 when a strong weather tide is running that any unusual 
 movementb in the water can be observed ; even then the 
 disturbance does not amount to much more than a rather 
 troublesome race. " Often and often, when she was a girl, 
 had his wife and her sisters sailed over its fabulous crater 
 in an open boat." But in this wild romantic country with 
 its sparse population, rugged mountains, and gloomy fiords, 
 very ordinary matters become invested with a character of 
 awe and mystery quite foreign to the atmosphere of our own 
 matter of fact world ; and many of the Norwegians are as 
 prone to superstition as the poor little Lapp pagans who 
 dwell among them. 
 
 No later than a few years ago, in the very fiord we had 
 passed on our way to Alten, Mdien an unfortunate boat got 
 cast away during the night on some rocks at a little dis- 
 tance from the shore, the inhabitants, startled by the cries, 
 of distress which reached them in the morning twilight 
 hurried down in a body to the sea-side,^not to afford as- 
 sistance, — but to open a volley of musketry on the drown- 
 ing mariners ; being fully persuaded that the stranded boat, 
 with its torn sails, was no other than the Kracken or Great 
 Sea-Serpent flapping its dusky wings : and when, at last, 
 one of the crew succeeded in swimming ashore in spite of 
 waves and bullets, — the whole society turned and fled ! 
 
 And now, again good-by. We are just going up to dine 
 
 with Mr, T ; and after dinner, or at least as soon as 
 
 the tide turns, we get under way — Northward Ho ! (as Mr. 
 Kingsley would say) in right good earnest this time ! ' 
 
LETTER XI. 
 
 WE SAIL FOR BEAR ISLAND, AND SPITZBERGEN CHERIE 
 
 ISLAND BARENTZ SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY PARRY'S 
 
 attempt to reach the north pole again amongst 
 
 the ice iceblink — first sight of spitzbergen 
 
 wilson decay of our hopes — constant struggle 
 
 with the ice we reach the 8o*^ n. lat. ^a freer 
 
 sea we land in spitzbergen english bay lady 
 
 Edith's glacier — a midnight photograph — no rein- 
 deer TO BE SEEN ET EGO IN ARCTIS WINTER IN 
 
 SPITZBERGEN — PTARMIGAN THE BEAR SAGA — THE 
 
 " FOAM " MONUMENT SOUTHWARDS^ — SIGHT THE GREEN- 
 LAND ICE A GALE WILSON ON THE MAELSTROM- 
 BREAKERS AHEAD ROOST TAKING A SIGHT — THRON- 
 
 DHJEM. 
 
 Thi'ondhjem^ Aug. 2 2d, 1856. 
 
 We have won our laurels, after all ! We have landed 
 in Spitzbergen — almost at its most northern extremity ; 
 and the little " Foam " has sailed to within 630 miles of 
 the Pole j that is to say, within 100 miles as far north as 
 any ship has ever succeeded in getting. 
 
 I think my last letter left us enjoying the pleasant hospi- 
 talities of Kaafiord. 
 
 The genial quiet of that last evening in Norway was 
 certainly a strange preface to the scenes we have since 
 witnessed. So warm was it, that when dinner was over, 
 
XI.] BEAR ISLAND, 183 
 
 we all went out into the garden, and had tea in the open 
 air; the ladies without either bonnets or shawls, merely 
 plucking a little branch of willow to brush away the mos- 
 quitoes ; and so the evening wore away in alternate inter- 
 vals of chat and song. At midnight, seawards again began 
 to swirl the tide, and we rose to go, — not without having 
 first paid a visit to the room where the little daughters of 
 the house lay folded in sleep. Then descending to the 
 beach, laden with flowers and kind wishes waved to us by 
 white handkerchiefs held in still whiter hands, we rowed 
 on board ; up went the flapping sails, and dipping her 
 ensign in token of adieu — the schooner glided swiftly on 
 between the walls of rock, until an intervening crag shut 
 out from our sight the friendly group that had come forth 
 to bid us " Good speed." In another twenty-four hours 
 we had threaded our way back through the intricate fiords ; 
 and leaving Hammerfest three or four miles on the star- 
 board hand, on the evening of the 2Sth of July, we passed 
 out between the islands of Soroe and Bolsvoe into the 
 open sea. 
 
 My intention was to go first to Bear Island, and 
 ascertain for myself in what direction the ice was lying to 
 the southward of Spitzbergen. 
 
 Bear — or Cherie Island, is a diamond-shaped island, 
 about ten miles long, composed of secondary rocks — prin- 
 cipally sandstone and limestone — lying about 280 miles 
 due north of the North Cape. It was originally discovered 
 by Barentz, the 9th of June, 1596, on the occasion of his 
 last and fatal voyage. Already had he commanded two 
 expeditions sent forth by the United Provinces to discover 
 a north-east passage to that dream-land — Cathay ; and 
 each time, after penetrating to the eastward of Nova 
 Zembla, he had been foiled by the impenetrable line of ice. 
 On this occasion he adopted the bolder and more northerly 
 courses which brou2:ht him to Bear Island. Thence, 
 
1 84 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XI 
 
 plunging into the mists of the frozen sea, he ultimately 
 sighted the western mountains of Spitzbergen. Unable to 
 proceed further in that direction, Barentz retraced his steps, 
 and again passing in sight of Bear Island, proceeded in a 
 south-east direction to Nova Zembla, where his ships got 
 entangled in the ice, and he subsequently perished. 
 
 Towards the close of the sixteenth century, in spite of 
 repeated failures, one endeavor after another was made to 
 penetrate to India across these fatal waters. 
 
 The first English vessel that sailed on the disastrous 
 quest was the " Bona Esperanza,'' in the last year of King 
 Edward VI. Her commander was Sir Hugh Willoughby, 
 and we have still extant a copy of the instructions drawn 
 up by Sebastian Cabot — the Grand Pilot of England, for 
 his guidance. Nothing can be more pious than the spirit 
 in which this ancient document is conceived ; expressly 
 enjoining that morning and evening prayers should be 
 offered on board every ship attached to the expedition, 
 and that neither dicing, carding, tabling, nor other devilish 
 devices — were to be permitted. Here and there were 
 clauses of a more questionable morality, — recommending 
 that natives of strange lands be "enticed on board, and 
 made drunk with your beer and wine ; for then you shall 
 know the secrets of their hearts." The whole concluding 
 with an exhortation to all on board to take especial heed 
 to the devices of " certain creatures, with men's heads, and 
 the tails of fishes, who swim with bows and arrows about the 
 fiords and bays, and live on human flesh." 
 
 On the nth of May the ill-starred expedition got under 
 way from Deptford, and saluting the king, who was then 
 lying sick at Greenwich, put to sea. By the 30th of July 
 the little fleet — three vessels in all — had come up abreast 
 of the Loffoden islands, but a gale coming on, the ^^ Esper- 
 anza " was separated from the consorts. Ward-huus — a 
 little harbor to the east of the North Cape — had been 
 
XI.] ARCTIC DISCOVERY. 185 
 
 appointed as the place of rendezvous in case of such an 
 event, but unfortunately, Sir Hugh overshot the mark, and 
 wasted all the precious autumn time in blundering amid 
 the ice to the eastward. At last, winter set in, and they 
 were obliged to run for a port in Lapland. Here, removed 
 from all human aid, they were frozen to death. A year 
 afterwards, the ill-fated ships were discovered by some 
 Russian sailors, and an unfinished journal proved that Sir 
 Hugh and many of his companions were still alive in 
 January, 1554. 
 
 The next voyage of discovery in a north-east direction 
 was sent out by Sir Francis Cherie, alderman of London, 
 in 1603. After proceeding as far east as Ward-huus and 
 Kela, the " Godspeed " pushed north into the ocean, 
 and on the i6th of August fell in with Bear Island. Un- 
 aware of its previous discovery by Barentz, Stephen Bennet 
 — who commanded the expedition — christened the island 
 Cherie Island, in honor of his patron, and to this day the 
 two names are used almost indiscriminately. 
 
 In 1607, Henry Hudson was despatched by the Mus- 
 covy Company, with orders to sail, if possible right across 
 the pole. Although perpetually baffled by the ice, Hudson 
 at last succeeded in reaching the north-west extremity of 
 Spitzbergen, but finding his further progress arrested by 
 an impenetrable barrier of fixed ice, he was forced to re- 
 turn. A few years later, Jonas Poole — having been sent 
 in the same direction, instead of prosecuting any discover- 
 ies, wisely set himself to killing the sea-horses that frequent 
 the Arctic ice-fields, and in lieu of tidings of new lands — 
 brought back a valuable cargo of walrus tusks. In 16 15, 
 Fortherby started with the intention of renewing the at- 
 tempt to sail across the north pole, but after encountering 
 many dangers he also was forced to return. It w^as during 
 the course of his homeward voyage that he fell in with the 
 island of Jan Mayen. Soon afterwards, the discovery by 
 
1 8 6 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA Til VDES. [XI. 
 
 Hudson and Davis, of the seas and straits to which they 
 had given their names, diverted the attention of the public 
 from all thoughts of a north-east passage, and the Spitz- 
 bergen waters were only frequented by ships engaged in 
 the fisheries. The gradual disappearance of the whale, 
 and the discovery of more profitable fishing stations on the 
 west coast of Greenland, subsequently abolished the sole 
 attraction for human being which this inhospitable region 
 ever possessed, and of late years, I understand, the Spitz 
 bergen seas have remained as lonely and unvisited as they 
 were before the first adventurer invaded their solitude. 
 
 Twice only, since the time of Fotherby, has any attempt 
 been made to reach the pole on a north-east course. In 
 1773, Captain Phipps, afterwards Lord Mulgrave, sailed 
 in the " Carcass " towards Spitzbergen, but he never reach- 
 ed a higher latitude than 81°. It was in this expedition 
 that Nelson made his first voyage, and had that famous 
 encounter with the bear. The next and last endeavor 
 was undertaken by Parry, in 1827. Unable to get his ship 
 even as far north as Phipps had gone, he determined to 
 leave her in a harbor in Spitzbergen, and push across the 
 sea in boats and sledges. The uneven nature of the sur- 
 face over which they had to travel, caused their progress 
 northward to be very slow, and very laborious. The ice 
 too, beneath their feet, was not itself immovable, and at 
 last they perceived they were making the kind of progress 
 a criminal makes upon the treadmill, — the floes over which 
 they were journeying drifting to the southward faster than 
 they walked north ; so that at the end of a long day's 
 march of ten miles, they found themselves four miles fur- 
 ther from their destination than at its commencement. 
 Disgusted with so Irish a manoeuvre, Parry determined to 
 return, though not until he had almost reached the 83rd 
 parallel, a higher latitude than any to which man is known 
 to have penetrated. Arctic authorities are still of opinion, 
 
XL] AGAIN AMONGST THE ICE. 187 
 
 that Parry's plan for reaching the north pole might prove 
 successful, if the expedition were to set out earlier in the 
 season, ere the intervening field of ice is cast adrift by the 
 approach of summer. 
 
 Our own run to Bear Island was very rapid. On get- 
 ting outside the island, a fair fresh wind sprung up, and 
 we went spinning along for two nights and two days as 
 merrily as possible, under a double-reefed mainsail and 
 staysail, on a due north course. On the third day we be- 
 gan to see some land birds, and a few hours afterwards, 
 the loom of the island itself ; but it had already begun to 
 get fearfully cold and our thermometer, which I consulted 
 every two hours, plainly indicated that we were approach- 
 ing ice. My only hope was that, at all events, the southern 
 extremity of the island might be disengaged j for I was 
 very anxious to land, in order to examine some coal-beds 
 which are said to exist in the upper strata of the sandstone 
 formation. This expectation was doomed to complete 
 disappointment. Before we had got within six miles of the 
 shore, it became evident that the report of the Hammerfest 
 Sea-horseman was too true. 
 
 Between us and the land there extended an impenetra- 
 ble barrier of packed ice, running due east and west, as 
 far as the eye could reach. 
 
 What was now to be done ? If a continuous field of ice 
 lay 150 miles off the southern coast of Spitzbergen, what 
 would be the chance of getting to the land by going further 
 north ? Now that we had received ocular proof of the 
 veracity of the Hammerfest skipper in this first particular, 
 was it likely that we should have the luck to find the re- 
 mainder of his story untrue ? According to the track he 
 had jotted down for me on the chart, the ice in front 
 stretched right away west in an unbroken line, to the wall 
 of ice which we had seen running to the north, from the 
 upper end of Jan Mayen. Only a week had elapsed since 
 
i88 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XI. 
 
 he had actually ascertained the impracticability of reaching 
 a higher latitude, — what likelihood could there be of a 
 channel having been opened up to the northward during 
 so short an interval ? Such was the series of insoluble 
 problems by which I posed myself, as we stood vainly 
 smacking our lips at the island, which lay so tantalizingly 
 beyond our reach. 
 
 Still, unpromising as the aspect of things might appear, 
 it would not do to throw a chance away ; so I determined 
 to put the schooner round on the other tack, and run west- 
 wards along the edge of the ice, until we found ourselves 
 again in the Greenland sea. Bidding, therefore, a last 
 adieu to Mount Misery, as its first discoverers very appro- 
 priately christened one of the higher hills in Bear Island, 
 we suffered it to melt back into a fog, — out of which, in- 
 deed, no part of the land had ever more than partially 
 emerged, — and with no very sanguine expectations as to 
 the result, sailed west away tov/ards Greenland. During 
 the next four-and-twenty hours we ran along the edge of 
 the ice, in nearly a due westerly direction, without observ- 
 ing the slightest indication of anything approaching to an 
 opening towards the North. It was weary work, scanning 
 that seemingly interminable barrier, and listening to the 
 melancholy roar of waters on its icy shore. 
 
 At last, after having come about 140 miles since leav- 
 ing Bear Island, — the long, white, wave-lashed line sud- 
 denly ran down into a low point, and then trended back 
 with a decided inclination to the North. Here, at all 
 events, was an improvement ; instead of our continuing to 
 steer W. by S., or at most W .by N., the schooner would often 
 lay as high up as N.W., and even N.W. by N. Evidently 
 the action of the Gulf Stream was beginning to tell, and 
 our spirits rose in proportion. In a few more hours, how- 
 ever, this cheering prospect was interrupted by a fresh line 
 of ice being reported, not only ahead, but as far as the eye 
 
XI.] LAND, HO! 191 
 
 could reach on the port bow ; so again the schooner's head 
 was put to the westward, and the old story recommenced. 
 And now the flank of the second barrier was turned, and 
 we were able to edge up a few hours to the northward \ 
 but only to be again confronted by another line, more 
 interminable, apparently, than the last. But why should I 
 weary you with the detail of our various manoeuvres during 
 the ensuing days t They were too tedious and dishearten- 
 ing at the time, for me to look back upon them with any 
 pleasure. Suflice it to say, that by dint of sailing north 
 whenever the ice would permit us, and sailing west when 
 we could not sail north, we found ourselves on the 2d of 
 August, in the latitude of the southern extremity of Spitz- 
 bergen, though divided from the land by about fifty miles 
 of ice. All this while the weather had been very good, 
 foggy and cold enough, but with a fine stiff breeze that 
 rattled us along at a good rate whenever we did get a 
 chance of making any Northing. But lately it had come 
 on to blow very hard, the cold became quite piercing, and 
 what v/as worse — in every direction round the whole circuit 
 of the horizon, except along its southern segment, — a 
 blaze of iceblink illuminated the sky. A more discourag- 
 ing spectacle could not have met our eyes. The iceblink 
 is a luminous appearance, reflected on the heavens from 
 the fields of ice that still lie sunk beneath the horizon ; 
 it was, therefore on this occasion an unmistakable indica- 
 tion of the encumbered state of the sea in front of us. 
 
 I had turned in for a few hours of rest^ and release 
 from the monotonous sense of disappointment, and was al- 
 ready lost in a dream of deep bewildering bays of ice, and 
 gulfs whose shifting shores offered to the eye every possi- 
 ble combination of uncomfortable scenery, without possible 
 issue, — when " a voice in my dreaming ear " shouted 
 '''- Land !'' and I awoke to its reality. I need not tell you 
 in what double quick time I tumbled up the companion, or 
 
192 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XI. 
 
 with what greediness I feasted my eyes on that longed-for 
 view, — the only sight — as I then thought — we were ever 
 destined to enjoy of the mountains of Spitzbergen ! 
 
 The whole heaven was overcast with a dark mantle of 
 tempestuous clouds, that stretched down in umbrella-like 
 points towards the horizon, leaving a clear space between 
 their edge and the sea, illuminated by the sinister brilUan- 
 cy of the iceblink. In an easterly direction, this belt of 
 unclouded atmosphere was etherealized to an indescribable 
 transparency, and up into it there gradually grew — above 
 the dingy line of starboard ice — a forest of thin lilac 
 peaks, so faint, so pale, that had it not been for the gem- 
 like distinctness of their outline, one could have deemed 
 them as unsubstantial as the spires of fairy-land. The 
 beautiful vision proved only too transient ; in one short 
 half hour mist and cloud had blotted it all out, while a 
 iresh barrier of ice compelled us to turn our backs on the 
 very land we were striving to reach. 
 
 Although we were certainly upwards of sixty miles dis- 
 tant from the land when the Spitzbergen hills were first 
 observed, the intervening space seemed infinitely less ; but 
 in these high latitudes the eye is constantly liable to be de- 
 ceived in the estimate it forms of distances. Often, from 
 some change suddenly taking place in the state of the at-: 
 mosphere, the land you approach will appear even to re- 
 cede; and on one occasion, an honest skipper — one of the 
 most valiant and enterprising mariners of his day — ac- 
 tually turned back, because, after sailing for several hours 
 with a fair wind towards the land, and finding himself no 
 nearer to it than at first, he concluded that some loadstone 
 rock beneath the sea must have attracted the keel of his 
 ship, and kept her stationary. 
 
 The next five days were spent in a continual struggle 
 with the ice. On referring to our log, I see nothing but a 
 repetition of the same monotonous observations. 
 
XIJ ICE-BOUND. 193 
 
 "July 31st. — ^Wind W. by S. — Courses sundry to clear 
 ice." 
 
 " Ice very thick." 
 
 "These twenty-four hours picking our way through 
 ice." 
 
 "August I St. — Wind W. — courses variable — foggy — 
 continually among ice these twenty-four hours." 
 
 And in Fitz's diary, the discouraging state of the 
 weather is still more pithily expressed : — 
 
 "August 2d.— Head wind — sailing westward— large hum- 
 mocks of ice ahead, and on port bow, /. e. to the westward 
 ■ — hope we may be able to push through. In evening, ice 
 gets thicker ; we still hold on — fog comes on — ice getting 
 thicker — wind freshens — -we can get no farther — ice im- 
 passable, no room to tack — struck the ice several times^ 
 obliged to sail S. and W. — things look very shady." 
 
 Sometimes we were on the point of despairing altogeth- 
 er, then a plausible opening would show itself as if leading 
 towards the land, and we would be tempted to run down 
 it until we found the field become so closely packed, that 
 it was with great difficulty we could get the vessel round— 
 and only then at the expense of collisions, which made the 
 little craft shiver from stem to stern. Then a fog would 
 come on — so thick, you could almost cut it like a cheese — 
 and thus render the sailing amang the loose ice very criti- 
 cal indeed ; then it would fall dead calm, and leave us, 
 hours together, muffled in mist, with no other employment 
 than chess or hopscotch. It was during one of those in- 
 tervals of quiet that I executed the annexed work of art, 
 which is intended to represent Sigurdr, in the act of medi- 
 tating a complicated gambit for the Doctor's benefit. 
 
 About this period Wilson culminated. Ever since leav- 
 ing Bear Island he had been keeping a carnival of grief in 
 the pantry, until the cook became almost half-witted by 
 reason of his Jeremiads. Yet I must not give you the 
 
 13 
 
194 
 
 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
 
 [XL 
 
 impression that the poor fellow was the least wanting in 
 pluck — far from it. Surely it requires the highest order of 
 courage to anticipate every species of disaster every mo- 
 ment of the day, and yet to meet the impending fate like 
 a man — as he did. Was it his fault that fate was not 
 equally ready to meet him ? His share of the business 
 was always done : he was ever prepared for the worst ; but 
 the most critical circumstances never disturbed the gravity 
 
 SiGURDR. 
 
 of his carriage, and the fact of our being destined to go to 
 the bottom before tea-time would not have caused him to 
 lay out the dinner table a whit less symmetrically. Still, I 
 own, the style of his service was slightly depressing. He 
 laid out my clean shirt of a morning as if it had been a 
 shroud ; and cleaned my boots as though for a man on his 
 last legs. The fact is, he was imaginative and atrabilious, — 
 contemplating life through a medium of the color of his 
 own complexion. 
 
 This was the cheerful kind of report he used invariably 
 
XL] WILSON'S REPORT. 195 
 
 to bring me of a morning. Coming to the side of my cot 
 with the air of a man announcing the stroke of doomsday, 
 he used to say, or rather, toll — 
 
 " Seven o'clock, my Lord ! " 
 
 " Very well ; how's the wind ? " 
 
 " Dead ahead, my Lord — dead !^' 
 
 " How many points is she off her course ? " 
 
 " Four points, my Lord — full four points ! " (Four 
 points being as much as she could be.) 
 
 " Is it pretty clear ? eh ! Wilson ? " 
 
 " — Can't see your hand, my Lord ! — can't see your 
 hand ! " 
 
 " Much ice in sight ? " 
 
 " — Ice all round, my Lord — ice a-all ro-oundl" — and 
 so exit, sighing deeply over my trousers. 
 
 Yet it was immediately after one of these unpromising 
 announcements, that for the first time matters began to 
 look a little brighter. The preceding four-and twenty 
 hours we had remained enveloped in a cold and dismal fog. 
 But on coming on deck, I found the sky had already begun 
 to clear; and although there was ice as far as the eye could 
 see on either side of us, in front a narrow passage showed 
 itself across a patch of loose ice into what seemed a freer 
 sea beyond. The only consideration was — whether we 
 could be certain of finding our way out again, should it 
 turn out that the open water we saw was only a basin with- 
 out any exit in any other direction. The chance was too 
 tempting to throw away ; so the little schooner gallantly 
 pushed her way through the intervening neck of ice where 
 the floes seemed to be least huddled up together, and in 
 half an hour afterwards found herself running up along the 
 edge of the starboard ice, almost in a due northerly direc- 
 tion. And here I must take occasion to say that, during 
 the whole of this rather anxious time, my master — Mr. 
 Wyse — conducted himself in a most admirable manner. 
 
l<)6 LE TTERS FR OM HIGH L A TI TUBES. [XI. 
 
 Vigilant, cool, and attentive, he handled the vessel most 
 skilfully, and never seemed to lose his presence of mind 
 in any emergency. It is true the silk tartan still coruscated 
 on Sabbaths, but its brilliant hues were quite a relief to 
 the colorless scenes which surrounded us, and the dangling 
 chain now only served to remind me of what firm depend- 
 ence I could place upon its wearer. 
 
 Soon after, the sun came out, the mist entirely disappeared 
 and again on the starboard hand shone a vision of the 
 land ; this time not in the sharp peaks and spires we had 
 first seen, but in a chain of pale blue egg-shaped islands, 
 floating in the air a long way above the horizon. This 
 peculiar appearance was the result of extreme refraction, 
 for, later in the day, we had an opportunity of watching 
 the oval cloudlike forms gradually harden into the same 
 pink tapering spikes which originally caused the island to 
 be called Spitzbergen : nay, so clear did it become, that 
 even the shadows on the hills became quite distinct, and 
 we could easily trace the outlines of the enormous glaciers 
 — sometimes ten or fifteen miles broad — that fill up every 
 valley along the shore. Towards evening the line of coast 
 again vanished into the distance, and our rising hopes re- 
 ceived an almost intolerable disappointment by the appear- 
 ance of a long line of ice right ahead, running to the west- 
 ward, apparently, as far as the eye could reach. To add 
 to our disgust, the wind flew right round into the North, 
 and increasing to a gale, brought down upon us — not one 
 of the usual thick arctic mists to which we were accustomed, 
 but a dark, yellowish brown fog, that rolled along the sur- 
 face of the water in twisted columns, and irregular masses 
 of vapor, as dense as coal smoke. We had now almost 
 reached the eightieth parallel of north latitude, and still 
 an impenetrable sheet of ice, extending fifty or sixty miles 
 westward from the shore, rendered all hopes of reaching 
 the land out of the question. Our expectation of finding 
 
XI.] A DREARY NIGHT. 
 
 197 
 
 the north-west extremity of the island disengaged from ice 
 by the action of the currents was — at all events for this 
 season — evidently doomed to disappointment. We were 
 alread}- almost in the latitude of Amsterdam Island — which 
 is actually its north-west point — -and the coast seemed more 
 encumbered than ever. No whaler had ever suc':eeded in 
 getting more than about 120 miles further north than we 
 ourselves had already come ; and to entangle ourselves 
 any further in the ice — unless it were with the certainty of 
 reaching land — would be sheer folly. The only thing to 
 be done was to turn back. Accordingly, to this course I 
 determined at last to resign myself, if, after standing on 
 for twelve hours longer, nothing should turn up to improve 
 the present aspect of affairs. It was now eleven o'clock ; 
 P.M. Fitz and Sigurdr went to bed, while I remained on 
 deck to see what the night might bring forth. It blew great 
 guns, and the cold was perfectly intolerable ; billow upon 
 billow of black fog came sweeping down between sea and 
 sky, as if it were going to swallow up the whole universe ; 
 while the midnight sun — now completely blotted out — now 
 faintly struggling through the ragged breaches of the mist 
 — threw down from time to time an unearthly red-brown 
 glare on the waste of roaring waters. 
 
 For the whole of that night did we continue beating up 
 along the edge of the ice, in the teeth of a whole gale of 
 wind ; at last about nine o'clock in the morning, — but two 
 short hours before the moment at which it had been agreed 
 we should bear up, and abandon the attempt, — we came up 
 with a long low point of ice, that had stretched further to 
 the Westward than any we had yet doubled ; and there, 
 beyond, lay an open sea ! — open not only to the Northward 
 and westward, but also to the Eastward ! You can imag- 
 ine my excitement. " Turn the hands up, Mr. Wyse ! " 
 " 'Bout ship ! " " Down with the helm ! " " Helm a-lee ! " 
 Up comes the schooner's head to the wind, the sails flap- 
 
198 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XI. 
 
 ping with the noise of thunder — blocks rattling against the 
 deck, as if they wanted to knock their brains out — ropes 
 dancing about in galvanized coils, like mad serpents — and 
 eveiy thing to an inexperienced eye in inextricable confusion ; 
 till gradually she pays off on the other tack — the sails stiffen 
 into deal-boards — the staysail sheet is let go — and heeling 
 over on the opposite side, again she darts forward over the 
 sea like an arrow from the bow. " Stand by to make sail ! " 
 " Out all reefs ! " I could have carried sail to sink a man- 
 of-war ! — and away the little ship went, playing leapfrog 
 over the heavy seas, and staggering under her canvas, as if 
 giddy with the same joyful excitement which made my own 
 heart thump so loudly. 
 
 In another hour the sun came out, the fog cleared away, 
 and about noon — up again, above the horizon, grow the 
 pale lilac peaks, warming into a rosier tint as we approach. 
 Ice still stretches toward the land on the starboard side ; 
 but we don't care for it now — the schooner's head is point- 
 ing E, and by S. At one o'clock we sight Amsterdam 
 Island, about thirty miles on the port bow ; then came the 
 " seven ice hills " — as seven enormous glaciers are called — ■ 
 that roll into the sea between lofty ridges of gneiss and 
 mica slate, a little to the northward of Prince Charles's 
 Foreland. Clearer and more defined grows the outline of 
 the mountains, some coming forward while others recede ; 
 their rosy tints appear less even, fading here and there into 
 pale yellows and greys ; veins of shadow score the steep 
 sides of the hills ; the articulations of the rocks become 
 visible \ and now, at last, we glide under the limestone 
 peaks of Mitre Cape, past the marble arches of King's Bay 
 on the one side, and the pinnacle of the Vogel Hook on 
 the other, into the quiet channel that separates the Foreland 
 from the main. 
 
 It was at one o'clock in the morning of the 6th of 
 August, 1856, that after having been eleven days at sea, we 
 

 i\iMH\ 
 
XI.] THE JAN MA YEN ICE RIVERS. 201 
 
 came to an anchor in the silent haven of English Bay, 
 Spitzhergen. 
 
 And now, how shall I give you an idea of the wonder- 
 ful panorama in the midst of which we found ourselves ? I 
 think, perhaps, its most striking feature was the stillness, 
 and deadness, and impassibility of this new world : ice, and 
 rock, and water surrounded us ; not a sound of any kind 
 interrupted the silence ; the sea did not break upon the 
 shore ; no bird or any living thing was visible ; the mid- 
 night sun, by this time muffled in a transparent mist, shed 
 an awful, mysterious lustre on glacier and mountain ; no 
 atom of vegetation gave token of the earth's vitality : an 
 universal numbness and dumbness seemed to pervade the 
 solitude. I suppose in scarcely any other part of the world 
 is this appearance of deadness so strikingly exhibited. On 
 the stillest summer day in England, there is always percep- 
 tible an under-tone of life thrilling through the atmosphere ; 
 and though no breeze should stir a single leaf, yet — in de- 
 fault of motion — there is always a sense of growth ; but 
 here not so much as \ blade of grass was to be seen on the 
 sides of the bald excoriated hills. Primeval rocks and 
 eternal ice constitute the landscape. 
 
 The anchorage where we had brought up is the best to 
 be found, with the exception perhaps of Magdalen a Bay, 
 along the whole west coast of Spitzbergen ; indeed it is 
 almost the only one where you are not liable to have the 
 ice set in upon you at a moment's notice. Ice Sound, Bell 
 Sound, Horn Sound — the other harbors along the west 
 coast — are all liable to be beset by drift-ice during the 
 course of a single night, even though no vestige of it may 
 have been in sight four-and-twenty hours before ; and many 
 a good ship has been inextricably imprisoned in the very 
 harbor to which she had fled for refuge. This bay is 
 completely landlocked, being protected on its open side by 
 Prince Charles's Foreland, a long island lying parallel with 
 
2 02 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XI, 
 
 the mainland. Down towards either horn run two rangfes 
 of schistose rocks, about 1,500 feet high, their sides almost 
 precipitous, and the topmost ridge as sharp as a knife, and 
 jagged as a saw ; the intervening space is entirely filled up 
 b}^ an enormous glacier, which, — descending with one con- 
 tinuous incline from the head of a valley on the right, and 
 sweeping like a torrent round the roots of an isolated clump 
 of hills in the centre — rolls at last into the sea. The length 
 of the glacial river from the spot where it apparently first 
 originated, could not have been less than thirty, or thirty- 
 five miles, or its greatest breadth less than nine or ten ; 
 but so completely did it fill up the higher end of the valley, 
 that it was as much as you could do to distinguish the 
 further mountains peeping up above its surface. The 
 height of the precipice where it fell into the sea, I should 
 judge to have been about 120 feet. 
 
 On the left a still more extraordinary sight presented 
 itself. A kind of baby glacier actually hung suspended 
 half way on the hill side, like a tear in the act of rolling 
 down the furrowed cheek of the mountain. 
 
 I have tried to convey to you a notion of the falling 
 impetus impressed on the surface of the Jan Mayen ice 
 rivers ; but in this case so unaccountable did it seem that 
 the overhanging mass of ice should not continue to thunder 
 down upon its course, that one's natural impulse was to 
 shrink from crossing the path along which a breath — a 
 sound — might precipitate the suspended avalanche into the 
 valley. Though, perhaps, pretty exact in outline and gen- 
 eral effect, the sketch I have made of this wonderful scene, 
 will never convey to you a correct notion of the enormous 
 scale of the distances, and size of its various features. 
 
 These glaciers are the principal characteristic of the 
 scenery in Spitzbergen ; the bottom of every valley in every 
 part of the island, is occupied and generally completely 
 filled by them, enabling one in some measure to realize the 
 
XI.] THE JAN MA YEN ICE RIVERS. 203 
 
 look of England during her glacial period, when Snowdon 
 was still being slowly lifted towards the clouds, and every 
 valley in Wales was brimfiil of ice. But the glaciers in 
 English Bay are by no means the largest in the island. We 
 ourselves got a view- — though a very distant one — of ice 
 rivers which must have been more extensive ; and Dr. 
 Scoresby mentions several which actually measured forty 
 or fifty miles in length, and nine or ten in breadth ; while 
 the precipice formed by their fall into the sea, was some- 
 times upward of 400 or 500 feet high. Nothing is more 
 dangerous than to approach these cliffs of ice. Every now 
 and then huge masses detach themselves from the face of 
 the crystal steep, and topple over into the water ; and woe 
 be to the unfortunate ship which might happen to be pass- 
 ing below. Scoresby himself actually witnessed a mass of 
 ice, the size of a cathedral, thunder down into the sea from 
 a height of 400 feet j frequently during our stay at Spitz- 
 bergen we ourselves observed specimens of these ice ava- 
 lanches ; and scarcely an hour passed without the solemn 
 silence of the bay being disturbed by the thunderous boom 
 resulting from similar catastrophes occurring in adjacent 
 valleys. 
 
 As soon as we had thoroughly taken in the strange fea- 
 tures of the scene around us, we all turned in for a night's 
 rest. I was dog tired, as much with anxiety as want of 
 sleep ; for in continuing to push on to the northward in 
 spite of the ice, 1 naturally could not help feeling that if 
 any accident occurred, the responsibility would rest with 
 me ; and although I do not believe that we were at any time 
 in any real danger, yet from our inexperience in the pe- 
 culiarities of arctic navigation, I think the coolest judg- 
 ment would have been liable to occasional misgivings as 
 to what might arise from possible contingencies. Now, 
 liowever, all was right ; the result had justified our antici- 
 pations j we had reached the so longed-for goal ; and as I 
 
204 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XI. 
 
 Stowed myself snugly away in the hollow of my cot, I could 
 not help heartily congratulating myself that — for that night 
 at all events — there was no danger of the ship knocking 
 a hole m her bottom against some hummock which the 
 lookout had been too sleepy to observe ; and that Wilson 
 could not come m the next morning and announce " ice all 
 round, a-ail ro-ound ! '' In a quarter of an hour afterwards, 
 all was still on board the ''Foam;'' and the lonely little 
 ship lay floating on the glassy bosom of the sea, apparently 
 as inanimate as the landscape. 
 
 My feelings on awakening next morning were very pleas- 
 ant ; something like what one used to feel the first morn- 
 ing after one's return from school, on seeing pink curtains 
 glistening round one's head, instead of the dirty-white 
 boards of a turned-up bedstead. When Wilson came in 
 with my hot water, I could not help triumphantly remark- 
 ing to him, — "Well, Wilson, you see we've got to Spitzber- 
 gen, after all." But Wilson was not a man to be driven 
 from his convictions by facts ; he only smiled grimly, with 
 a look which meant — " Would we were safe back again ! " 
 Poor Wilson ! he would have gone only half way with Ba- 
 con in his famous Apothegm ; he would willingly "commit 
 the Beginnings of all actions to Argus with his hundred 
 eyes, and the Ends " — to Centipede, -with his hundred legs. 
 " First to watch, and then to speed " — away ! would have 
 been his pithy emendation. 
 
 Immediately after breakfast we pulled to the shore, 
 carrying in the gig with us the photographic apparatus, 
 tents, guns, ammunition, and the goat. Poor old thing! 
 she had suffered dreadfully from sea-sickness, and I thought 
 a run ashore might do her good. On the left-hand side of 
 the bay, between the foot of the mountain and the sea, 
 there ran a low fiat belt of black moss, about half a mile 
 broad : and as this appeared the only point in the neigh- 
 borhood likely to ofTer any attraction to reindeer, it was on 
 
XT.] SEARCHING FOR REINDEER. 205 
 
 this side that I determined to land. My chief reason for 
 having run into English Bay rather than Magdalena Bay 
 was because we had been told at Hammerfest that it was 
 the more likely place of the two for deer; and as we were 
 sadly in want of fresh meat this advantage quite decided 
 us in our choice. As soon, therefore, as we had superin- 
 tended the erection of the tent, and set Wilson hard at work 
 cleaning the glasses for the photographs, we slung our rifles 
 on our backs, and set oft in search of deer. But in vain 
 did I peer through my telescope across the dingy flat in 
 front ; not a vestige of a horn was to be seen, although in 
 several places we came upon impressions of their track. 
 At last our confidence in the reports of their great plenty 
 became considerably diminished. Still the walk was very 
 refreshing after our confinement on board ; and although 
 the thermometer was below^ freezing, the cold only made 
 the exercise more pleasant. A little to the northward I 
 observed, lying on the sea-shore, innumerable logs of drift- 
 wood. This wood is floated all the way from America by 
 the Gulf Stream, and as I walked from one huge bole to 
 another, I could not help wondering in what primeval for- 
 est each had grown, what chance had originally cast them 
 on the waters, and piloted them to this desert shore. Min- 
 gled with this fringe of unhewn timber that lined the beach 
 lay waifs and strays of a more sinister kind ; pieces of bro- 
 ken spars, an oar, a boat's flagstaff, and a few shattered 
 fragments of some long-lost vessel's planking. Here and 
 there, too, we would come upon skulls of walrus, ribs and 
 shoulder-blades of bears, brought possibly by the ice in 
 winter. Turning again from the sea, we resumed our 
 search for deer ; but two or three hours' more very stiff 
 walking produced no better luck. Suddenly a cry from 
 Fitz, who had wandered a little to the right, brought us 
 helter-skelter to the spot where he was standing. But it was 
 not a stag he had called us to come and look upon. Half 
 
2o6 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XI. 
 
 imbedded in the black moss at his feet, there lay a grey- 
 deal coffin falling almost to pieces with age ; the lid was 
 gone — blown off probably by the wind — and within were 
 stretched the bleaching bones of a human skeleton. A rude 
 cross at the head of the grave still stood partially upright, 
 and a half obliterated Dutch inscription preserved a record 
 of the dead man's name and age. 
 
 VANDER SCHELLING .... 
 
 COMMAN .... JACOB MOOR ... 
 OB 2 JUNE 1758 ^T 44. 
 
 It was evidently some poor whaler of the last century 
 to whom his companions had given the only burial possi- 
 ble in this frost-hardened earth, which even the summer 
 sun has no force to penetrate beyond a couple of inches, 
 and which will not afford to man the shallowest grave. A 
 bleak resting-place for that hundred years' slumber, I 
 thought, as I gazed on the dead mariner's remains ! — 
 
 " I was snowed over with snow, 
 And beaten with rains, 
 And drenched with the dews ; 
 Dead have I long been," — 
 
 — murmured the Vala to Odin in Nifelheim, — and whispers 
 of a similar import seemed to rise up from the lidless coffin 
 before us. It was no brother mortal that lay at our feet, 
 softly folded in the embraces of " Mother Earth," but a 
 poor scarecrow, gibbeted for ages on this bare rock, like a 
 dead Prometheus ; the vulture, frost, gnawing for ever on 
 his bleaching relics, and yet eternally preserving them ! 
 
 On another part of the coast we found two other 
 corpses yet more scantily sepulchred, without so much as 
 a cross to mark their resting-place. Even in the palmy 
 days of the whale-fisheries, it was the practice of the Dutch 
 and English sailors to leave the wooden coffins in which 
 they had placed their comrades' remains, exposed upon 
 
XL I THE UNBURIED DEAD. 207 
 
 the shore ; and I have been told by an eye-witness, that in 
 Magdalena Bay there are to be seen, even to this day, the 
 bodies of men wlio died upwards of 250 years ago, in sucli 
 complete preservation that, wlien you pour hot water on 
 the icy coating wliich encases tliem, you can actually see 
 the unchanged features of the dead, through the transpar- 
 ent incrustation. 
 
 As soon as Fitz had gathered a few of the little flower- 
 ing mosses that grew inside the coffin, we proceeded on 
 our way, leaving poor Jacob Moor — like his great name- 
 sake — alone in his glory. 
 
 Turning to the right, we scrambled up the spur of one 
 of the mountains on the eastern side of the plain, and 
 thence dived down among the lateral valleys that run up 
 between them. Although by this means we opened up 
 quite a new system of hills, and basins, and gullies, the 
 general scenery did not change its characteristics. All 
 vegetation — if the black moss deserves such a name — 
 ceases when you ascend twenty feet above the level of the 
 sea, and the sides of the mountains become nothing but 
 steep slopes of schist, split and crumbled into an even sur- 
 face by the frost. Every step we took unfolded a fresh 
 succession of these jagged spikes and break-neck acclivi- 
 ties, in an unending variety of quaint configuration. 
 Mountain climbing has never been a hobby of mine, so I 
 was not tempted to play the part of Excelsior on any of 
 these hill sides ; but for those who love such exercise a 
 fairer or a more dangerous opportunity of distinguishing 
 themselves could not be imagined. The super-cargo or 
 owner of the very first Dutch ship that ever came to Spitz- 
 bergen, broke his neck in attempting to climb a hill in 
 Prince Charles's Foreland. Barentz very nearly lost several 
 of his men under similar circumstances ; and when Scores- 
 by succeeded in making the ascent of another hill near 
 Horn Sound, it was owing to his having taken the precau- 
 
2o8 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XL 
 
 tion of marking each upward step in chalk, that he was 
 ever able to get down again. The prospect from the sum- 
 mit, the approach to which was by a ridge so narrow that 
 he sat astride upon its edge, seems amply to have repaid 
 the exertion ; and I do not think I can give you a better 
 idea of the general effect of Spitzbergen scenery, than by 
 quoting his striking description of the panorama he be- 
 held :— 
 
 " The prospect was most extensive and grand. A fine 
 sheltered bay was seen to the east of us, an arm of the 
 same on the north-east, and the sea, whose glassy surface 
 was unruffled by a breeze, formed an immense expanse on 
 the west ; the icebergs rearing their proud crests almost to 
 the tops of mountains between which they were lodged, and 
 defying the power of the solar beams, were scattered in 
 various directions about the sea-coast and in the adjoining 
 bays. Beds of snow and ice filling extensive hollows, and 
 giving an enamelled coat to adjoining valleys, one of which 
 commencing at the foot of the mountain where we stood 
 extended in a continued line towards the north, as far as 
 the eye could reach — mountain rising above mountain, un- 
 til by distance they dwindled into insignificancy — the whole 
 contrasted by a cloudless canopy of deepest azure, and en- 
 lightened by the rays of a blazing sun, and the effect aided 
 by a feeling of danger, seated as we were on the pinnacle 
 of a rock almost surrounded by tremendous precipices, — 
 all united to constitute a picture singularly sublime. 
 
 " Our descent we found really a very hazardous, and in 
 some instances a painful undertaking. Every movement 
 was a work of deliberation. Having by much care, and 
 with some anxiety, made good our descent to the top of 
 the secondary hills, we took our way down one of the 
 steepest banks, and slid forward with great facility in a 
 sitting posture. Towards the foot of the hill, an expanse 
 of snow stretched across the line of descent. This being 
 
XL] EXPLORING. 209 
 
 loose and soft, we entered upon it without fear j but on 
 reacliing the middle of it, we came to a surface of solid 
 ice, perhaps a hundred yards across, over which we launched 
 with astonishing velocity, but happily escaped without in- 
 jury. The men whom we left below, viewed this latter 
 movement with astonishment and fear." 
 
 So universally does this strange land bristle with peaks 
 and needles of stone, that the views we ourselves obtained 
 — though perhaps from a lower elevation, and certainly 
 without the risk — scarcely yielded either in extent or pic- 
 turesque grandeur to the scene described by Dr. Scoresby. 
 
 Having pretty well overrun the country to the north- 
 ward, without coming on any more satisfactory signs of 
 deer than their hoof-prints in the moss, we returned on 
 board. The next day — but I need not weary you with a 
 journal of our daily proceedings ; for, however interesting- 
 each moment of our stay in Spitzbergen was to ourselves — 
 as much jDcrhaps from a vague expectation of what we 
 might see, as from anything we actually did see — a minute 
 account of every w^alk we took, and every bone we picked 
 up, or every human skeleton we came upon, would proba- 
 bly only make you wonder why on earth we should have 
 wished to come so far to see so little. Suffice it to say that 
 we explored the neighborhood in the three directions left 
 open to us by the mountains, that we climbed the two most 
 accessible of the adjacent hills, wandered along the margin 
 of the glaciers, rowed across to the opposite side of the 
 bay, descended a certain distance along the sea-coast, and 
 in fact exhausted all the lions of the vicinity. 
 
 During the whole jDcriod of our stay in Spitzbergen, we 
 had enjoyed unclouded sunshine. The nights were even 
 brighter than the days, and afforded Fitz an opportunity of 
 taking some photographic views by the light of a midjiight 
 sun. The cold was never very intense, though the ther- 
 mometer remained below freezing ; but about four o'clock 
 
 14 
 
2 1 o LE TTERS FROM HIGH L A TI TUBES. [XI. 
 
 every evening, the salt-water bay in wliich the schooner lay 
 was veneered over with a pellicle of ice one eighth of aa 
 inch in thickness, and so elastic, that even when the sea 
 beneath was considerably agitated, its surface remained 
 unbroken, the smooth, round waves taking the appearance 
 of billows of oil. If such is the effect produced by the 
 slightest modification of the sun's power, in the month of 
 August, — you can imagine what must be the result of his 
 total disappearance beneath the horizon. The winter is, 
 in fact, unendurable. Even in the height of summer, the 
 moisture inherent in the atmosphere is often frozen into 
 innumerable particles, so minute as to assume the appear- 
 ance of an impalpable mist. Occasionally persons have 
 wintered on the island, but unless the greatest precautions 
 have been taken for their preservation, the consequences 
 have been almost invariably fatal. About the same period 
 as when the party of Dutch sailors were left at Jan Mayen, 
 a similar experiment was tried in Spitzbergen. At the 
 former place it was scurvy, rather than cold, which 
 destroyed the poor wretches left there to fight it out with 
 winter ; at Spitzbergen, as well as could be gathered from 
 their journal, it appeared that they had perished from the 
 intolerable severity of the climate, — and the contorted at- 
 titudes in which their bodies were found lying, too plainly 
 indicated the amount of agony they had suffered. No de- 
 scription can give an adequate idea of the intense rigor 
 of the six months' winter in this part of the world. Stones 
 crack with the noise of thunder j in a crowded hut the 
 breath of its occupants will fall in flakes of snow ; wine 
 and spirits turn to ice ; the snow burns like caustic \ if iron 
 touches the flesh, it brings the skin away with it ; the soles 
 of your stockings may be burnt off your feet, before you 
 feel the slightest warmth from the fire ; linen taken out of 
 boiling water, instantly stiffens to the consistency of a 
 wooden board ; and heated stones will not prevent the 
 
XL] PTARMIGAN, 
 
 211 
 
 sheets of the bed from freezing. If these are the effects 
 of the cHmate within an air tight, fire-warmed, crowded 
 hut — what must they be among tlie dark, storm-laslied 
 mountain-pealcs outside ? 
 
 It was now time to tliink of going south again ; we had 
 spent many more days on the voyage to Spitzbergen than 
 I had expected, and I was continually haunted by the dread 
 of your becoming anxious at not hearing from us. It was a 
 great disappointment to be obliged to return without having 
 got any deer ; but your peace of mind was of more conse- 
 quence to me than a ship-load of horns ; and accordingly we 
 decided on not remaining more than another day ni our 
 present berth, leaving it still an open question whether we 
 should not run up to Magdalena Bay, if the weather proved 
 very inviting, the last thing before quitting for ever the 
 Spitzbergen shores. 
 
 We had killed nothing as yet, except a few eider ducks, 
 and one or two ice-birds — the most ";raceful winsred 
 creatures I have ever seen, with immensely long pinions, 
 and plumage of spotless white. Although enormous seals 
 from time to time used to lift their wise, grave faces above 
 the water, with the dignity of sea-gods, none of us had any 
 great inclination to slay such rational human-looking 
 creatures j and — with the exception of these and a white 
 fish, a species of whale — no other living thing had been 
 visible. On the very morning, however, of the day settled 
 for our departure, Fitz came down from a solitary expedi- 
 '■'on up a hill with the news of his having seen some ptar- 
 migan. Having taken a rifle with him instead of a gun, 
 he had not been able to shoot more than one, which he 
 had brought back in triumph as proof of the authenticity of 
 his report ; but the extreme juvenility of his victim hardly 
 permitted us to identify the species ; the hole made by 
 the bullet being about the same size as the bird. Never- 
 theless, the slightest prospect of obtaining a supply of fresh 
 
2 12 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [XI. 
 
 meat was enough to reconcile us to any amount of exer- 
 tion ; therefore, on the strength of the jDinch of feathers 
 which Fitz kept gravely assuring us was the game he had 
 bagged, we seized our guns — I took a rifle in case of a pos- 
 sible bear — and set our faces toward the hill. After a good 
 hour's pull we reached the shoulder which Fitz had indi- 
 cated as the scene of his exploit, but a patch of snow was 
 the only thing visible. Suddenly I saw Sigurdr, who was 
 remarkably sharp-sighted, run rapidly in the direction of 
 the snow, and bringing his gun up to his shoulder, point it 
 — as well as I could distinguish — at his own toes. When 
 the smoke of the shot had cleared away, I fully expected 
 to see the Icelander prostrate ; but he was already reload- 
 ing with the greatest expedition. Determined to prevent 
 the repetition of so dreadful an attemjDt at self-destruction, 
 I rushed to the spot. Guess then my relief when the 
 bloody body of a ptarmigan — driven by so ponit blank a 
 discharge a couple of feet into the snow — was triumphantly 
 dragged forth by instalments from the sepulchre which it 
 had received contemporaneously with its death wound, and 
 thus happily accounted for Sigurdr's extraordinary proceed- 
 ing. At the same moment I perceived two or thee dozen 
 other birds, brothers and sisters of the defunct, calmly 
 strutting about under our very noses. By this time Sigurdr 
 had reloaded, Fitz had also come up, and a regular massa- 
 cre began. Retiring to a distance — for it was the case of 
 Mahomet and the mountain reversed — the two sportsmen 
 opened fire upon the innocent community, and in a few 
 seconds sixteen corpses strewed the ground. 
 
 Scarcely had they finished off the last survivor of this 
 Niobean family, when we were startled by the distant re- 
 port of a volley of musketry, fired in the direction of the 
 schooner. I could not conceive what had happened. Had 
 a mutiny taken place 1 Was Mr. Wyse re-enacting, with a 
 less docile ship's company, the pistol scene on board the 
 
XL] KILLING A POLAR BEAR. 213 
 
 Glasgow steamer ? Again resounded the rattle of the firing. 
 At all events, there was no time to be lost in getting back ; 
 so, tying up the birds in three bundles, we flung ourselves 
 down into the gully by which we had ascended, and leap- 
 ing on from stone to stone, to the infinite danger of our 
 limbs and necks, rolled rather than ran down the hill. On 
 rounding the lower wall of the curve which hitherto had 
 hid what was passing from our eyes, the first I observed was 
 Wilson breasting up the hill, evidently in a state of the 
 greatest agitation. As soon as he thought himself within 
 earshot, he stopped dead short, and, making a speaking- 
 trumpet with his hands, shrieked, rather than shouted, " If 
 you please, my Lord ! " — (as I have already said, Wilson 
 never forgot les convena7ices) — " If you please, my Lord, 
 there's a b-e-a-a-a-a-r ! " prolonging the last word into a 
 polysyllable of fearful import. Concluding by the enthu- 
 siasm he was exhibiting, that the animal in question was at 
 his heels, — hidden from us probably by the inequality of 
 the ground, — I cocked my rifle, and prepared to roll him 
 over the moment he should appear in sight. But what was 
 my disappointment, when on looking towards the schooner, 
 my eye caught sight of our three boats fastened in a row, 
 and towing behind them a white floating object, which my 
 glass only too surely resolved the next minute into the 
 dead bear ! 
 
 On descending to the shore, I learned the whole story. 
 
 As Mr. Wyse was pacing the deck, his attention was 
 suddenly attracted by a white speck in the water, swim- 
 ming across from Prince Charles' Foreland, — the long 
 island which lies over against English Bay. When first 
 observed, the creature, whatever it might be, was about a 
 mile and a half off, — the width of the channel between the 
 island and the main being about five miles. Some said it 
 was a bird, others a whale, and the cook suggested a mer- 
 maid. When the fact was ascertained that it was a bona 
 
2 14 LE TTERS FRO M HIGH LA TI TUBES. [XI. 
 
 fide bear, a gun was fired as a signal for us to return ; but 
 it was evident that unless at once intercepted. Bruin would 
 get ashore. Mr. Wyse, therefore, very properly determined 
 to make sure of him. This was a matter of no difficulty ; 
 the poor beast showed very little fight. His first impulse 
 was to swim away from the boat ; and even after he had 
 been wounded, he only turned round once or twice upon 
 his pursuers. The honor of having given him his death 
 wound, rests between the steward and Mr. Wyse ; both con- 
 tend for it. The evidence is conflicting, as at least half-a- 
 dozen mortal wounds were found in the animal's body ; 
 each may be considered to have had a share in his death. 
 Mr. Grant rests his claim principally upon the fact of his 
 having put two bullets in my new rifle — which must have 
 greatly improved the bore of that instrument. On the 
 strength of this precaution, he now wears as an ornament 
 about his person one of the bullets extracted from the giz- 
 zard of our prize. 
 
 All this time, Wilson was at the tent, busily occupied in 
 taking photographs. As soon as the bear was observed, a 
 signal was made to him from the ship, to warn him of the 
 visitor he might shortly expect on shore. Naturally con- 
 cluding that the bear would in all piobability make for the 
 tent as soon as he reached land, it became a subject of 
 consideration with him what course he should pursue. 
 Weapons he had none, unless the chemicals he was using 
 might be so regarded. Should he try the influence of chlo- 
 roform on his enemy ; or launch the whole photographic 
 apparatus at his grizzly head, and take to his heels ? 
 Thought is rapid, but the bear's progress seemed equally 
 expeditious : it was necessary to arrive at some speedy 
 conclusion. To fly — was to desert his post and leave the 
 camp in possession of the spoiler ; life and honor were 
 equally dear to him. Suddenly a bright idea struck him. 
 
 At the time the goat had been disembarked to take her 
 
XI.] WILSON AND THE BEAR. 215 
 
 pleasure on ten-a Jinna, our crow's-nest barrel had been 
 landed with her. At this moment it was standing unoccu- 
 pied by the side of the tent. By creeping into it, and turn- 
 ing its mouth downward on the ground, Wilson perceived 
 that he should convert it into a tower of strength for him- 
 self against the enemy, while its legitimate occupant, be- 
 coming at once a victim to the bear's voracity, would prob- 
 ably prevent the monster from investigating too curiously 
 its contents. It was quite a pity that the interposition of 
 the boats prevented his jDutting this ingenious plan into 
 execution. He had been regularly do7ie out of a situation, 
 in which the most poignant agony of mind and dreary an- 
 ticipations would have been absolutely required of him. 
 He pictured the scene to himself ; he lying fermenting in 
 the barrel, like a curious vintage ; the bear snuffing queru- 
 lously round it, perhaps cracking it like a cocoa-nut, or ex- 
 tracting him like a periwinkle ! Of these chances he had 
 been deprived by the interference of the crew. Friends 
 are often injudiciously meddling. 
 
 Although I felt a little vexation that one of us should 
 not have had the honor of slaying the bear in single com- 
 bat, which would certainly have been for the benefit of his 
 skin, the unexpected luck of having got one at all, made 
 us quite forget our personal disappointment. As for my 
 people, they were beside themselves with delight. To have 
 killed a polar bear was a great thing, but to eat him would 
 be a greater. If artistically dealt with, his carcase would 
 probably cut up into a supply of fresh meat for many days. 
 One of the hands happened to be a butcher. Whenever I 
 wanted anything a little out of the way to be done on 
 board, I was sure to find that it happened to be the spe- 
 cialite of some one of the ship's company. In the course 
 of a few hours, the late bear was converted into a row of 
 the most tempting morsels of beef, hung about the rigging. 
 Instead of in flags, the ship was dressed in joints. In the 
 
2i6 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XI. 
 
 mean time it so happened that the fox, having stolen a piece 
 of offal, was in a few minutes afterwards seized with con- 
 vulsions. I had already given orders that the bear's liver 
 should be thrown overboard, as being, if not poisonous, at 
 all events very unwholesome. The seizure of the fox, 
 coupled with this injunction, brought about a complete rev- 
 olution in the men's minds, with regard to the delicacies 
 they had been so daintily preparing for themselves. Si- 
 lently, one by one, the pieces were untied and thrown into 
 the sea ; I do not think a mouthful of bear was eaten on 
 board the " Foam.^'' I never heard whether it was in con- 
 sequence of any prognostics of Wilson's that this act of 
 self-denial was put into practice. I observed, however, 
 that for some days after the slaughter and dismemjberment 
 of the bear, my ship's company presented an unaccountably 
 sleek appearance. As for the steward, his head and whis- 
 kers seemed carved out of black marble; a varnished boot 
 would not have looked half so bright ; I could have seen 
 to shave myself in his black hair. I conclude, therefore, 
 that the ingenious cook must, at all events, have succeeded 
 in manufacturing a supply of genuine bear's grease, of 
 which they had largely availed themselves. 
 
 The bagging of the bear had so gloriously crowned our 
 visit to Spitzbergen, that our disappointment about the 
 deer was no longer thought of; it was therefore with light 
 hearts, and most complete satisfaction, that we prepared 
 for departure. 
 
 Maid Marian had already carved on a flat stone an in- 
 scription, in Roman letters, recording the visit of the 
 " Foam " to English Bay ; and a cairn having been erected 
 to receive it, the tablet was solemnly lifted to its resting- 
 place. Underneath I placed a tin box, containing a mem- 
 orandum similar to that left at Jan Mayen, as well as a 
 printed dinner invitation from Lady , which I hap- 
 pened to have on board. Having planted a boat's flag be- 
 
XL] ICE ALL ROUND. 217 
 
 side the rude monument, and brought on board with us a 
 load of drift-wood to serve hereafter as Christmas yule- 
 logs, we bade an eternal adieu to the silent hills around 
 us ; and weighing anchor, stood out to sea. For some 
 hours a lack of wind still left us hanging about the shore, 
 in the midst of a grave society of seals ; but soon after, a 
 gentle breeze sprang up in the south, and about three 
 o'clock on Friday, the nth of August, we again found 
 ourselves spanking along before a six-knot breeze, over 
 the pale green sea. 
 
 In considering the course on which I should take the 
 vessel home, it appeared to me that in all probability we 
 should have been much less pestered by the ice on our way 
 to Spitzbergen, if, instead of hugging the easterly ice, we 
 had kept more away to the westward ; I determined there- 
 fore — as soon as we got clear of the land — to stand right 
 over to the Greenland shore, on a due west course, and not 
 to attempt to make any southing, until we should have 
 struck the Greenland ice. The length of our tether in that 
 direction being ascertained, we could then judge of the 
 width of the channel down which we were to beat, for it 
 was still blowing pretty fresh from the southward. 
 
 Up to the evening of the day on which we quitted Eng- 
 lish Bay, the weather had been most beautiful ; calm, sun- 
 shiny, dry, and pleasant. Within a few hours of our get- 
 ting under weigh, a great change had taken place, and by 
 midnight it had become as foggy and disagreeable as ever. 
 The sea was pretty clear. During the few days we had 
 been on shore, the northerly current had brushed away the 
 great angular field of ice whi^h had lain off the shore, in a 
 north-west direction ; so that instead of being obliged to 
 run up very nearly to the 80th parallel, in order to round 
 it, we were enabled to sail to the westward at once. Dur- 
 ing the course of the night, we came upon one or two wan- 
 dering patches of drift ice, but so loosely packed that we 
 
2 18 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [XI. 
 
 had no difficulty in pushing through them. About foul 
 o'clock in the morning, a long line of close ice was re- 
 ported right a head, stretching south as far as the eye could 
 reach. We had come about eighty miles since leaving 
 Spitzbergen. The usual boundary of the Greenland ice in 
 summer runs, according to Scoresby, along the second 
 parallel of west longitude. This we had already crossed ; 
 so that it was to be presumed the barricade we saw before 
 us was a frontier of the fixed ice. In accordance, there- 
 fore, with my predetermined plan, we now began working 
 to the southward, and the result fully justified my expecta- 
 tions. 
 
 The sea became comparatively clear, as far as could be 
 seen from the deck of the vessel ; although small vagrant 
 patches of ice that we came up with occasionally — as well 
 as the temperature of the air and the sea — continued to 
 indicate the proximity of larger bodies on either side of us. 
 
 It was a curious sensation with which we had gradually 
 learnt to contemplate this inseparable companion ; it had 
 become a part of our daily existence, an element, a thing 
 without which the general aspect of the universe would be 
 irregular and incomplete. It was the first thing we thought 
 of in the morning, the last thing we spoke of at night. It 
 glittered and grinned maliciously at us in the sunshine ; it 
 winked mysteriously through the stifling fog ; it stretched 
 itself like a prostrate giant, with huge, portentous shoulders 
 and shadowy limbs^ right across our course ; or danced 
 gleefully in broken groups in the little schooner's wake. 
 There was no getting rid of it, or forgetting it ; and if at 
 night we sometimes returned in dreams to the green sum- 
 mer world — to the fervent harvest fields of England, and 
 heard " the murmurs of innumerous bees," or the song of 
 larks on thymy uplands — thump ! bump ! splash ! gra-a-te ! 
 — came the sudden reminder of our friend on the starboard 
 bow ; and then sometimes a scurry on deck, and a general 
 
XL] A SACRIFICE TO RUIN. 219 
 
 " scrimmage " of the whole society, in endeavors to pre- 
 vent more serious collisions. Moreover, I could not say, 
 with your old French friend, that " Familiarity breeds de- 
 spise." The more we saw of it, the less we liked it ; its 
 cold presence sent a chilly sense of discouragement to the 
 heart, and I had daily to struggle with an ardent desire to 
 throw a boot at Wilson's head, every time his sepulchral 
 voice announced the " Ice all around .f'' 
 
 It was not until the 14th of August, five days after 
 quitting Spitzbergen, that we lost sight of it altogether. 
 From that moment the temperature of the sea steadily 
 rose, and we felt that we were sailing back again into the 
 pleasant summer. 
 
 A sad event which occurred soon after, in some measure 
 marred our enjoyment of the change. Ever since she had 
 left Hammerfest, it had become too evident that a sea- 
 going life did not agree with the goat. Even the run on 
 shore at Spitzbergen had not sufficed to repair her shat- 
 tered constitution, and the bad weather we had had ever 
 since completed its ruin. It was certain that the butcher 
 was the only doctor who could now cure her. In spite, 
 therefore, of the distress it occasioned Maid Marian, I was 
 compelled to issue orders for her execution. Sigurdr was 
 the only person who regarded the tragical event with in- 
 difference, nay, almost with delight. Ever since we had 
 commenced sailing in a southerly direction, we had been 
 obliged to beat ; but during the last four-and-twenty hours 
 the wind kept dodging us every time we tacked, as a nerv- 
 ous pedestrian sets to you sometimes on a narrow trottoir. 
 This spell of ill-luck the Icelander heathenishly thought 
 would only be removed by a sacrifice to Rhin, the goddess 
 of the sea, in which light he trusted she would look upon 
 the goat's body when it came to be thrown overboard. 
 
 Whether the change which followed upon the consign- 
 ment of her remains to the deep really resulted from such 
 
220 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XI. 
 
 an influence, I am not prepared to say. The weather im- 
 mediately thereafter certainly did change. First the wind 
 dropped altogether ; but though the calm lasted several 
 hours, the sea strangely enough appeared to become all the 
 rougher, tossing and tumbling restlessly ?// a7id down — (not 
 over and over as in a gale) — like a sick man on a fever 
 bed j the impulse to the waves seeming to proceed from all 
 four quarters of the world at once. Then like jurymen 
 with a verdict of death upon their lips, the heavy, ominous 
 clouds slowly passed into the north-west. 
 
 A dead stillness followed — a breathless pause — until, at 
 some mysterious signal, the solemn voice of the storm 
 hurtled over the deep. Luckily we were quite ready for it ; 
 the gale came from the right quarter, and the fiercer it blew 
 the better. For the next three days and three nights it was 
 a scurry over the sea such as I never had before ; nine or 
 ten knots an hour was the very least we ever went, and 240 
 miles was the average distance we made every four-and 
 twenty hours. 
 
 Anything grander and more exciting than the sight of 
 the sea under these circumstances you cannot imagine. The 
 vessel herself remains very steady; when you are below 3'ou 
 scarcely know you are not in port. But on raising your head 
 above the companion the first sight which meets your eye is 
 an upright wall of black water, towering, you hardly know 
 how many feet, into the air over the stern. Like a lion 
 walking on its hind legs, it comes straight at you, roaring 
 and shaking its white mane with fury — it overtakes the ves- 
 sel — the upright shiny face curves inwards — the white mane 
 seems to hang above your very head ; but ere it topples 
 over, the nimble little ship has already slipped from under- 
 neath. You hear the disappointed jaws of the sea-monster 
 snap angrily together, — the schooner disdainfully kicks up 
 her heel — and raging and bubbling up on either side the 
 quarter, the unpausing wave sweeps on, and you see its 
 
XL] WILSOIV ON THE MAELSTROM. 221 
 
 round back far ahead, gradually swelling upwards, as it 
 gathers strength and volume for a new effort. 
 
 We had now got considerably to the southward of North 
 Cape. We had already seen several ships, and you would 
 hardly imagine with what childish delight my people hailed 
 these symptoms of having again reached more " Christian 
 latitudes," as they called them 
 
 I had always intended, ever since my conversation with 
 Mr. T. about the Maelstrom, to have called in at Loffoden 
 Islands on our way south, and ascertain for myself the real 
 truth about this famous vortex. To have blotted such a 
 bugbear out of the map of Europe, if its existence really 
 was a myth, would at all events have rendered our cruise 
 not altogether fruitless. But, since leaving Spitzbergen, we 
 had never once seen the sun, and to attempt to make so 
 dangerous a coast in a gale of wind and a thick mist, with 
 no more certain knowledge of the ship's position than our 
 dead reckoning afforded, was out of the question ; so about 
 one o'clock in the morning, the weather giving no signs of im- 
 provement, the course I had shaped in the direction of the 
 island was altered, and we stood away again to the south- 
 ward. This manoeuvre was not unobserved by Wilson, but 
 he mistook its meaning. Having, I suppose, overheard us 
 talking at dinner about the Maelstrom, he now concluded the 
 supreme hour had arrived. He did not exactly comprehend 
 the terms we used, but had gathered that the spot was one 
 fraught with danger. Concluding from the change made 
 in the vessel's course that we were proceeding towards 
 the dreadful locality, he gave himself up to despair, and lay 
 tossing in his hammock in sleepless anxiety. At last the 
 load of his forebodings was greater than he could bear ; he 
 gets up, steals into the Doctor's cabin, wakes him up, and 
 standing over him — as the messenger of ill tidings once 
 stood over Priam — whispers, ^^ Sir T' "What is it?" says 
 Fitz, thinking, perhaps, some one was ill. " Do you know 
 
2 22 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XI. 
 
 where we are going?" "Why, to Throndhjem," answered 
 Fitz. " We were going to Throndhjem," rejoins Wilson, 
 " but we ain't "now — the vessel's course was altered two 
 hours ago. Oh, Sir! we are going to Whirlpool — to Whirl-7'l- 
 pooo-l I Sir ! " in a quaver of consternation, — and so glides 
 back to bed like a phantom, leaving the Doctor utterly un- 
 able to divine the occasion of his visit. 
 
 The whole of the next day the gale continued. We had 
 now sailed back into night ; it became therefore a question 
 how far it would be advisable to carry on during the ensuing 
 hours of darkness, considering how uncertain we were as 
 to our real position. As I think I have already described 
 to you, the west coast of Norway is very dangerous ; a con- 
 tniuous sheet of sunken rocks lies out along its entire edge 
 for eight or ten miles to sea. There are no lighthouses to 
 warn the mariner off ; and if we were wrong in our reckon-^ 
 ing, as v/e might very well be, it was possible we might 
 stumble on the land sooner than we expected. I knew the 
 proper course would be to lie to quietly until we could take 
 an observation ; but time was so valuable, and I was so 
 fearful you would be getting anxious. The night was pretty 
 clear. High mountains, such as we were expecting to 
 make, would be seen, even at night, several miles off. Ac- 
 cording to our log we were still 150 miles off the land, and, 
 however inaccurate our calculation might be, the error 
 could not be of such magnitude as that amounted to. To 
 throw away so fair a wind seemed such a pity, especially as 
 it might be days before the sun appeared ; we had already 
 been at sea about a fortnight without a sight of him, and 
 his appearance at all during the summer is not an act de 
 rigiieur in this part of the world ; we might spend yet 
 another fortnight in lying to, and then after all have to poke 
 our way blindfold to the coast ; at all events it would-be 
 soon enough to lie to the next night. Such were the con- 
 siderations, which — after an anxious consultation with Mr. 
 
XL] ''BREAKERS AHEAD T' IIT, 
 
 Wyse in the cabin, and mu6h fingering of the charts, — 
 determined me to carry on during the night. 
 
 Nevertheless, I confess I was very uneasy. Though 
 I went to bed and fell asleep — for at sea nothing prevents 
 that process — my slumbers were constantly agitated by the 
 most vivid dreams that I ever remember to have had. 
 Dreams of an arrival in England, and your coming down to 
 meet us, and all the pleasure I had in recounting our adven- 
 tures to you ; then suddenly your face seemed to fade away 
 beneath a veil of angry grey surge that broke over low, 
 sharp-pointed rocks ; and the next moment there resounded 
 over the ship that cry which has been the preface to so many 
 a disaster — the ring of which, none who have ever heard it 
 are likely to forget — " Breakers ahead ! " 
 
 In a moment I was on deck, dressed — for it is always 
 best to dress, — and there, sure enough, right ahead, about 
 a mile and a half off, through the mist, which had come on 
 very thick, I could distinguish the upward shooting fluff of 
 seas shattering against rocks. No land was to be seen, 
 but the line of breakers every instant became more evident ; 
 at the pace we were going, in seven or eight minutes we 
 should be upon them. Now, thought I to myself, we shall 
 see whether a stout heart beats beneath the silk tartan ! 
 The result covered that brilliant garment with glory and 
 salt water. To tack was impossible, we could only wear, 
 — and to wear m such a sea was no very pleasant operation. 
 But the little ship seemed to know what she was about, as 
 well as any of us : up went the helm, round came the 
 schooner into the trough of the sea, — high over her quarter 
 toppled an enormous sea, built up of I know not how many 
 tons of water, and hung over the deck j — by some unac- 
 countable wriggle, an instant ere it thundered down,she had 
 twisted her stern on one side, and the waves passed under- 
 neath. In another minute her head was to the sea, the 
 mainsail was eased over, and all danger was past. 
 
2 24 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [XI. 
 
 What was now to be done ? That the land we had seen 
 was the coast of Norway I could not believe. Wrong as 
 our dead reckoning evidently was, it could not be so wrong 
 as that. Yet only one other supposition was possible, viz., 
 that we had not come so far south as we imagined, and that 
 we had stumbled upon Roost — a little rocky island that lies 
 about twenty miles to the southward of the Loffoden 
 Islands. Whether this conjecture was correct or not, did 
 not much matter ; to go straight away to sea, and lie to 
 until we could get an observation, was the only thing to be 
 done. Away then we went, struggling against a tremen- 
 dous sea for a good nine hours, until we judged ourselves to 
 be seventy or eighty miles from where we had sighted the 
 breakers, — when we lay to, not in the best of tempers. The 
 next morning, not only was it blowing as hard as ever, but 
 all chance of getting a sight that day seemed also out of 
 the question. I could have eaten my head with impatience. 
 However, as it is best never to throw a chance away, about 
 half-past eleven o'clock, though the sky resembled an even 
 sheet of lead, I got my sextant ready, and told Mr. Wyse 
 to do the same. 
 
 Now, out of tenderness for your feminine ignorance I 
 must state, that in order to take an observation, it is neces- 
 sary to get a sight of the sun at a particular moment of the 
 day : this moment is noon. When, therefore, twelve o'clock 
 came, and one could not so much as guess in what quarter 
 of the heavens he might be \ym^ perdu^ you may suppose I 
 almost despaired. Ten minutes passed. It was evident 
 we were doomed to remain, kicking our heels for another 
 four-and-twenty hours where we were. No ! — yes ! — no ! 
 By Phcebus ! there he is ! A faint spongy spot of brightness 
 gleamed through the grey roof overhead. The indistinct 
 outline grew a little clearer ; one-half of him, though still 
 behind a cloud, hardened into a sharp edge. Up went the 
 sextant. " 52.43 ! " (or whatever it was) I shouted to Mr. 
 
XL] DANGEROUS NA VIGA TIO N. 227 
 
 Wyse. "52.41, my Lord ! " cried he, in return ; there was 
 only the discrepancy of a mile between us. We had got 
 the altitude ; the sun might go to bed for good and all now, 
 we did not care, — we knew our position to an inch. There 
 had been an error of something like forty miles in our dead 
 reckoning, in consequence — as I afterwards found — of a 
 current that sets to the northward, along the west coast of 
 Norway, with a velocity varying from one to three miles an 
 hour. The island upon which we had so nearly run was 
 Roost. We were still nearly 200 miles from our port. 
 "Turn the hands up ! Make sail ! " and away we went 
 again in the same course as before, at the rate of ten knots 
 an hour. 
 
 " The girls at home have got hold of the tow-rope, I think, 
 my Lord," said Mr. Wyse, as we bounded along over the 
 thundering seas. 
 
 By three o'clock next day we were up with Vigten ; and 
 now a very nasty piece of navigation began. In order to 
 make the northern entrance of the Throndhjem Fiord, you 
 have first to find your way into what is called the Frch 
 Havet, — a kind of oblong basin about sixteen miles long, 
 formed by a ledge of low rocks running parallel with the 
 mainland, at a distance of ten miles to seaward. Though 
 the space between this outer boundary and the coast is so 
 wide, in consequence of the network of sunken rocks which 
 stuffs it up, the passage by which a vessel can enter is very 
 narrow, and the only landmark to enable you to find the 
 channel is the head one of the string of outer islets. As 
 this rock is about the size of a dining-table, perfectly flat, 
 and rising only a few feet above the level of the sea, to 
 attempt to make it is like looking for a needle in a bottle 
 of hay. It was already beginning to grow very late and 
 dark by the time w^e had come up with the spot where 
 it ought to have been, but not a vestige of such a thing 
 had turned up. Should we not sight it in a quarter of 
 
228 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XI. 
 
 an hour, we must go to sea again, and lie to for the night, 
 — a very unpleasant alternative for any one so impatient 
 as I was to reach a port. Just as I was going to give the 
 order, Fitz — who was certainly the Lynceus of the ship's 
 company — espied its black back just peeping up above the 
 tumbling water on our starboard bow. We had hit it off to 
 a yard ! 
 
 In another half-hour we were stealing down in quiet 
 water towards the entrance of the fiord. All this time not 
 a rag of a pilot had appeared ; and it was without any such 
 functionary that the schooner swept up next morning be- 
 tween the wooded, grain-laden slopes of the beautiful loch, 
 to Throndhjem — the capital of the ancient sea-kings of 
 Norway. 
 
LETTER XII. 
 
 THRONDHJEM HARALD HAARFAGER — KING HACON's LAST 
 
 BATTLE — OLAF TRYGGVESSON THE " LONG SERPENT " 
 
 —ST. OLAVE THORMOD THE SCALD— THE JARL OF 
 
 LADE THE CATHEDRAL HARALD HARDRADA THE 
 
 BATTLE OF STANFORD BRIDGE — A NORSE BALL ODIN 
 
 ^AND HIS PALADINS. 
 
 Off MUNKHOLM, Aug. 27, 1856. 
 
 Throndhjem (pronounced Tronyem) looked very pretty 
 and picturesque, with its red-roofed wooden houses spark- 
 ling in the sunshine, its many windows filled with flowers, 
 its bright fiord covered with vessels gayly dressed in flags, 
 in honor of the Crown Prince's first visit to the ancient 
 capital of the Norwegian realm. Tall, pretentious ware- 
 houses crowded down to the water's edge, like bullies at a 
 public show elbowing to the foremost rank ; orderly streets 
 stretched in quiet rows at right angles with each other, and 
 pretty villas with green cinctures sloped away towards 
 the hills. In the midst rose the king's palace, the largest 
 wooden edifice in Europe ; while the old grey Cathedral — 
 stately and grand in spite of the slow destruction of the ele- 
 ments, the mutilations of man's hands, or his yet more de- 
 grading rough-cast and stucco reparations — still towered 
 above the perishable wooden buildings at his feet, with the 
 solemn pride which befits the shrine of a royal saint. 
 
 I cannot tell you with what eagerness I drank in all the 
 features of this lovely scene ; at least, such features as 
 
230 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XII. 
 
 Time can hardly alter — the glancing river, from whence 
 the city's ancient name of Nidaros, or " mouth of the Nid," 
 is derived, — the rocky island of Munkholm, the bluff of 
 of Lade', — the land-locked fiord and its pleasant hills, 
 beyond whose grey stony ridges I knew must lie the fatal 
 battle-field of Sticklestad. Every spot to me was full of 
 interest, — but an interest noways connected with the neat 
 green villas, the rectangular streets, and the obtrusive ware- 
 houses. These signs of a modern humdrum prosperity 
 seemed to melt away before my eyes as I gazed from the 
 schooner's deck, and the accessories of an elder time came 
 to furnish the landscape ; — the clumsy merchantmen lazily 
 swaying with the tide, darkened into armed galleys with 
 their rows of glittering shields, — the snug, bourgeois-look- 
 ing town shrank into the quaint proportions of the huddled 
 ancient Nidaros, — and the old marauding days, with their 
 shadowy line of grand old pirate kings, rose up with wel- 
 come vividness before my mind. 
 
 What picture shall I try to conjure from the past, to 
 live in your fancy, as it does in mine ? 
 
 Let the setting be these very hills, — flooded by this 
 same cold, steely sunshine. In the midst stands a stalwart 
 form, in quaint but regal attire. Hot blood deepens the 
 color of his sun-bronzed cheek ; an iron purpose gleams in 
 his earnest eyes, like the flash of a drawn sword ; a circlet 
 of gold binds the massive brow, and from beneath it stream 
 to blow his waist thick masses of hair, of that dusky red 
 which glows like the heart of a furnace in the sunlight, but 
 deepens earthbrown in the shadow. By his side stands a 
 fair woman ; her demure and heavy-lidded eyes are sel- 
 dom lifted from the earth, which yet they seem to scorn ; 
 but the king's eyes rest on her, and many looks are turned 
 towards him. A multitude is present, moved by one great 
 event, swayed by a thousand passions ; — some with garru- 
 lous throats full of base adulation and an unworthy joy ; 
 
XII.] HARALD HAARFAGER. 231 
 
 — some pale, self-scorning, with averted looks^ and hands 
 that twitch instinctively at their idle daggers, then drop 
 hopeless, harmless at their sides. 
 
 The king is Harald Haarfager, "of the fair hair;" the 
 woman is proud and beautiful Gyda, whose former scorn 
 for him, in the days when he was nothing but the petty 
 chief of a few barren mountains, provoked that strange wild 
 vow of his, " That he would never clip or comb his locks 
 till he could woo her as sole king of Norway." 
 
 Among the crowd are those who have bartered, for 
 ease, and wealth, and empty titles born of the king's breath 
 — their ancient Udal rights, their Bonder privileges; 
 others have sunk their proud hearts to bear the yoke of 
 the stronger hand, yet gaze with yearning looks on the 
 misty horizon that opens between the hills. A dark speck 
 mars that shadowy line. Thought follows across the space. 
 It is a ship. Its sides are long, and black, and low ; but 
 high in front rises the prow, fashioned into the semblance 
 of a gigantic golden dragon, against whose gleaming breast 
 the divided waters angrily flash and gurgle. Along the 
 top sides of the deck are hung a row of shining shields, in 
 alternate breadths of red and white, like the variegated 
 scales of a sea-monster, whilst its glided tail curls aft over 
 the head of the steersman. From either flank projects a 
 bank of some thirty oars, that look, as they smite the ocean 
 with even beat, like the legs on which the reptile crawls 
 over its surface. One stately mast of pine serves to carry 
 a square sail made of cloth, briUiant with stripes of red, 
 white, and blue. 
 
 And who are they who navigate this strange, barbaric 
 vessel ? — why leave they the sheltering fiords of their be- 
 loved Norway ? They are the noblest hearts of that noble 
 land — freemen, who value freedom, — who have abandoned 
 all rather than call Harald master, and now seek a new 
 home even among the desolate crags of Iceland, rather 
 than submit to the tyranny of a usurper. 
 
232 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [XI I. 
 
 ** Norb— 0bcr (^ub ! tuenn nur bie (©^elen gluben ! '' 
 
 Another picture, and a sadder story ; but the scene is 
 now a wide dun moor, on the slope of a seaward hill ; the 
 autumn evening is closing in, but a shadow darker than 
 that of evening broods over the desolate plain, — the shadow 
 of Death. Groups of armed men, with stern sorrow in their 
 looks, are standing round a rude couch, hastily formed of 
 fir branches. An old man lies there — dying. His ear is 
 dulled even to the shout of victory; the mists of an endless 
 night are gathering in his eyes ; but there is passion yet in 
 the quivering lip, and triumph on the high-resolved brow ; 
 and the gesture of his hand has kingly power still. Let 
 me tell his saga, like the bards of that old time. 
 
 KING HACON'S LAST BATTLE. 
 
 I, 
 
 All was over : day was ending 
 
 As the foeman turned and fled. 
 
 Gloomy red 
 
 Glowed the angry sun descendmg ; 
 
 While round Hacon's dying bed, 
 
 Tears and songs of triumph blending. 
 
 Told how fast the conqueror bled. 
 
 XL 
 
 " Raise me," said the King. We raised him 
 
 Not to ease his desperate pain ; 
 
 That were vain ! 
 
 " Strong our foe was — but we faced him : 
 
 Show me that red field again." 
 
 Then, with reverent hands, we placed him 
 
 High above the bloody plain. 
 
 IIL 
 
 Silent gazed he ; mute we waited, 
 Kneeling round — a faithful few, 
 Staunch and true, — 
 
XII.] KING HACON. 233 
 
 Whilst above, with thunder freighted, 
 Wild the boisterous north wind blew, 
 And the carrion-bird, unsated, 
 On slant wing around us flew. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Sudden, on our startled hearing, 
 
 Came the low-breathed, stern command — 
 
 " Lo ! ye stand ? 
 
 Linger not, the night is nearing ; 
 
 Bear me downwards to the strand, 
 
 Where my ships are idly steering 
 
 Off and on, in sight of land." 
 
 V. 
 
 Every whispered word obeying. 
 Swift we bore him down the steep, 
 O'er the deep, 
 
 Up the tall ship's side, low swaying 
 To the storm-wind's powerful sweep, 
 And — his dead companions laying 
 Round him, — we had time to weep. 
 
 VI. 
 
 But the King said — " Peace ! bring hither 
 
 Spoil and weapons — battle-strown, 
 
 Make no moan ; 
 
 Leave me and my dead together, 
 
 Light my torch, and then — begone." 
 
 But we murmured, each to other, 
 
 " Can we leave him thus alone ? " 
 
 VII. 
 
 Angrily the King replieth ; 
 Flash the awful eyes again, 
 With disdain — 
 " Call him not alone who lieth 
 Low amidst such noble slain ; 
 Call him not alone who dieth 
 Side by side with gallant men." 
 
234 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Slowly, sadly, we departed : 
 Reached again that desolate shore, 
 Nevermore 
 
 Trod by him, the brave true-hearted- 
 Dying in that dark ship's core 1 
 Sadder keel from land ne'er parted, 
 Nobler freight none ever bore I 
 
 IX. 
 
 There we lingered, seaward gazing, 
 Watching o'er that living tomb, 
 Through the gloom — 
 Gloom ! which awful light is chasing — 
 Blood-red flames the surge illume ! 
 Lo ! King Hacon's ship is blazing ; 
 'Tis the hero's self-sought doom. 
 
 X. 
 
 Right before the wild wind driving, 
 Madly plunging — stung by fire — 
 No help nigh her — 
 Lo ! the ship has ceased her striving ! 
 Mount the red flames higher — higher ! 
 Till — on ocean's verge arriving. 
 Sudden sinks the Viking's pyre — 
 Hacon's gone 1 
 
 Let me call one more heroic phantom from Norway's 
 romantic past. 
 
 A kindly presence, stately and tall ; his shield held high 
 above his head — a broken sword in his right hand. Olaf 
 Tryggvesson ! Founder of Nidaros ; — that cold Northern 
 Sea has rolled for many centuries above your noble head, 
 and yet not chilled the battle heat upon your brow, nor 
 staunched the blood that trickles down your iron glove, 
 from hidden, untold wounds, which the tender hand of 
 Thyri shall never heal ! 
 
Xll.] THE OLD-WORLD HEROES. 235 
 
 To such ardent souls it is indeed given "to live forever" 
 (the for ever of this world); for is it not '• Life " to keep a 
 hold on our affections, when their own passions are at rest, 
 • — to influence our actions (however indirectly) — when 
 action is at an end for them ? Who shall say how much of 
 modern heroism may owe its laurels to that first throb of 
 fiery sympathy which young hearts feel at the relation of 
 deeds such as Olaf Tryggvesson's ? 
 
 The forms of those old Greeks and Romans whom we 
 are taught to reverence, may project taller shadows on the 
 world's stage ; but though the scene be narrow here, and 
 light be wanting, the interest is not less intense, nor are 
 the passions less awful that inspired these ruder dramas. 
 
 There is an individuality in the Icelandic historian's 
 description of King Olaf that wins one's interest — -at 
 first as in an acquaintance — and rivets it at last as in a 
 personal friend. The old Chronicle lingers with such lov- 
 ing minuteness over his attaching qualities, his social, gen- 
 erous nature, his gayety and "frolicsomeness ;" even his 
 finical taste in dress, and his evident proneness to fall too 
 hastily in love, have a value in the portrait, as contrasting 
 with the gloomy colors in which the story sinks at last. 
 The warm, impulsive spirit speaks in every action of his 
 life, from the hour when — a young child in exile — he strikes 
 his axe into the skull of his foster father's murderer, to the 
 last grand scene near Svalderoe. You trace it in his ab- 
 sorbing grief for the death of Geyra, the wife of this youth ; 
 the sage says, "he had no pleasure in Vinland after it," and 
 then naively observes, " he therefore provided himself with 
 war-ships, and went a-plundering," one of his first achieve- 
 ments being to go and pull down London Bridge. This 
 peculiar kind of " distraction " (as the French call it) seems 
 to have had the desired effect, as is evident in the romantic 
 incident of his second marriage, when the Irish Princess 
 Gyda chooses him — apparently an obscure stranger — to be 
 
236 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XII. 
 
 her husband, out of a hundred wealthy and well-born aspi- 
 rants to her hand. But neither Gyda's love, nor the rude 
 splendors of her father's court, can make Olaf forgetful of 
 his claims upon the throne of Norway — the inheritance of 
 his father ; and when that object of his just ambition is 
 attained, and he is proclaimed King by general election of 
 the Bonders, as his ancestor Harald Haarfager had been, 
 his character deepens in earnestness as the sphere of his 
 duties is enlarged. All the energies of his ardent nature 
 are put forth in the endeavor to convert his subjects to the 
 true Faith. As he himself expresses it, " he would bring it 
 to this, — that all Norway should be Christian or die!'^ In 
 the same spirit he meets his heretic and rebellious subjects 
 at the Thing of Lade, and boldly replies, when they require 
 him to sacrifice to the false gods, " If I turn with you to 
 offer sacrifice, then shall it be the greatest sacrifice that 
 can be made ; I will not offer slaves, nor malefactors to 
 your gods, — I will sacrifice men ; — and they shall be the 
 noblest men among you ! " It was soon after this that he 
 despatched the exemplary Thangbrand to Iceland. 
 
 With a front not less determined does he face his 
 country's foes. The king of Sweden, and Svend " of the 
 forked beard," king of Denmark, have combined against 
 him. With them is joined the Norse jarl, Eric, the son of 
 Hacon. Olaf Tryggvesson is sailing homewards with a 
 fleet of seventy ships, — himself commanding the famous 
 " Lo7tg Serpent,'' the largest ship built in Norway. His 
 enemies are lying in wait for him behind the islands. 
 
 Nothing can be more dramatic than the description of 
 the sailing of this gallant fleet — (piloted by the treacher- 
 ous Earl Sigwald) — within sight of the ambushed Danes 
 and Swedes, who watch from their hiding-place the beauti- 
 ful procession of hostile vessels, mistaking each in turn for 
 the ^^ Long Serpent,'' and as often undeceived by a new and 
 yet more stately apparition. She appears at length, her 
 
XII.] OLAF TRYGGl^ESSON. 237 
 
 dragon prow glittering in the sunshine, all canvas spread, 
 her sides bristling with armed men ; " and when they saw 
 her, none spoke, — all knew it to be indeed the ' Serpent^' 
 — and they went to their ships to. arm for the fight." As 
 soon as Olaf and his forces had been enticed into the nar- 
 row passage, the united fleets of the three allies pour out 
 of the Sound ; his people beg Olaf to hold on his way 
 and not risk battle with such a superior, force ; but the 
 King replied, high on the quarter-deck where he stood, 
 " Strike the sails ! I never fled from battle : let God dis- 
 pose of my life, but flight I will never take ? " He then 
 orders the war-horns to sound, for all his ships to close up 
 to each other. " Then," says Ulf the Red, captain of the 
 forecastle, " if the ' Loiig Serpent ' is to lie so much a-head 
 of the other vessels, we shall have hot work of it here on 
 the forecastle." 
 
 The King replies, " I did not think I had a forecastle 
 man afraid^ as well as red^ ^ 
 
 Says Ulf, " Defend thou the quarter-deck, as I shall 
 the forecastle." 
 
 The King had a bow in his hands ; he laid an arrow 
 on the string, and made as if he aimed at Ulf. 
 
 Ulf said, " Shoot another way. King, where it is more 
 needful, — my work is thy gain." 
 
 Then the King asked, " Who is the chief of the force 
 right opposite to us ? " He is answered, " Svend of Den- 
 mark, with his army." 
 
 Olaf replies, " We are not afraid of these soft Danes ! 
 Who are the troops on the right ? " 
 
 They answer, " Olaf of Sweden, and his forces." 
 
 " Better it were," replies the King, " for these Swedes to 
 be sitting at home, kilhng their sacrifices, than venturing 
 
 1 There is a play on these two words in the Icelandic, " Raudan oc 
 Ragan." 
 
238 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XII. 
 
 under the weapons of the ^ Long Serpent' But who owns 
 the large ships on the larboard side of the Danes ? " 
 
 '' That is Jarl Eric, son of Hacon," say they. 
 
 The King says, " He has reason for meeting us ; we 
 may expect hard blows from these men \ they are Norse- 
 men like ourselves." 
 
 The fierce conflict raged for many hours. It went hard 
 with the " soft Danes," and idolatrous Swedes, as Olaf had 
 foreseen ; after a short struggle they turn and fly. But 
 Jarl Eric in his large ship the " Iron Beard'' is more than 
 a match for Olaf's lighter vessels. One by one their decks 
 are deluged with blood, their brave defenders swept into 
 the sea ; one by one they are cut adrift and sent loose with 
 the tide. And now at last the " Iron Beard" lies side by 
 side with the ^' Long Serpent^'' and it is indeed "hot work" 
 both on forecastle and quarter-deck. 
 
 *' Einar Tambarskelvar, one of the sharpest of bow- 
 men, stood by the mast, and shot with his bow," His ar- 
 row hits the tiller-end, just over the Earl's head, and buries 
 itself up to the shaft in the wood. " Who shot that bolt ? " 
 says the Jarl. Another flies between his hand and side, 
 and enters the stuffing of the chief's stool. Then said the 
 Jarl to a man named Fin, " Shoot that tall archer by the 
 mast ! " Fin shoots ; the arrow hits the middle of Einar's 
 bow as he is in the act of drawing it, and the bow is split 
 in two. 
 
 "What is that," cried King Olaf, "that broke with 
 such a noise 1 " 
 
 " Norway, King, from thy hands ! " cried Einar. 
 
 " No ! not so much as that," says the King ; " take my 
 bow, and shoot," — flinging the bow to him. 
 
 Einar took the bow, and drew it over the head of the 
 arrow. " Too weak, too weak," said he, " for the bow of 
 a mighty King ! " and throwing the bow aside, " he took 
 sword and buckler, and fought valiantly." 
 
Xil.] DEATH OF OLAF. 2^9 
 
 But Olaf s hour is come. Many slain lie around him : 
 many that have fallen by his hand, more that have fallen 
 at his side. The thinned ranks on board the " Iro7i BeanV^ 
 are constantly replenished by fresh combatants from other 
 vessels, even by the Swedes and soft Danes, now '' strong, 
 upon the stronger side," — while Olaf, cut off from succor, 
 stands almost alone upon the '"'' Serpcnfs'''' deck, made slip- 
 pery by his people's blood. The Jarl had laid out boats 
 to intercept all who might escape from the ship ; but es- 
 cape is not in the King's thoughts. He casts one look 
 around him, glances at his sword- — broken like Einar's 
 bow — draws a deep breath, and, holding his shield above 
 his head, springs overboard. A shout — a rush ! who shall 
 first grasp that noble prisoner t Back, slaves ! the shield 
 that has brought hrni scathless through a hundred fights, 
 shall yet shelter him from dishonor. 
 
 Countless hands are stretched to snatch him back to 
 worthless life, but the shield alone floats on the swirl of 
 the wave : — King Olaf has sunk beneath it. 
 
 Perhaps you have already had enough of my Saga lore ; 
 but with that grey cathedral full in sight, I cannot but dedi- 
 cate a few lines to another Olaf, king and warrior like the 
 last, but to whom after times have accorded a yet higher 
 title. 
 
 Saint Olaf s — Saint Olave, as we call him — early history 
 savors little of the odor of sanctity, but has rather that 
 " ancient and fish-like smell " which characterized the do- 
 ings of the Vikings, his ancestors. But those were days 
 when honor rather than disgrace attached to the ideas of 
 booty and plunder, especially in an enemy's country ; it 
 was a " spoiling of the Egyptians " sanctioned by custom, 
 and even permitted by the Church, which did not disdain 
 occasionally to share in the profits of a successful cruise, 
 when presented in the decent form of silver candlesticks 
 and other ecclesiastical gauds. As to the ancient historian, 
 
240 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XII. 
 
 he mentions these matters as a thing of course. " Here 
 the King landed, burnt, and ravaged;" "there the Jarl 
 gained much booty ; " " this summer, they took a cruise 
 in the Baltic, to gather property," etc., much as a modern 
 biographer would speak of a gentleman's successful rail- 
 road speculations, his taking shares in a coal mine, or com- 
 ing into a " nice little thing in the Long Annuities." 
 Nevertheless, here is something significant of his future 
 vocation, in a speech which Olaf makes to his assembled 
 friends and relations, imparting to them his design of en- 
 deavoring to regain possession of the throne : " I and 
 my men have nothing for our support save what we cap- 
 tured in \NdiX,for which we have hazarded both life and soul ; 
 for many an innocent man have we deprived of his property, 
 and some of their lives, and foreigners are now sitting in 
 the possessions of my fathers." One sees here a faint 
 glimmer of the Saint's nimbus, over the helmet of the 
 Viking, a dawning perception of the "rights of property," 
 which, no doubt, must have startled his hearers into the 
 most ardent conservative zeal for the good old marauding 
 customs. 
 
 But though years elapsed, and fortunes changed, before 
 this dim light of the early Church became that scorching 
 and devouring flame which, later, spread terror and con- 
 fusion among the haunts of the still lingering ancient gods, 
 an earnest sense of duty seems to have been ever present 
 with him. If it cannot be denied that he shared the errors 
 of other proselytizing monarchs, and put down Paganism 
 with a stern and bloody hand, no merely personal injury 
 ever weighed with him. How grand is his reply to those 
 who advise him to ravage with fire and sword the rebel- 
 lious district of Throndhjem, as he had formerly punished 
 numbers of his subjects who had rejected Christianity : — 
 " We had then God's honor to defend ; but this treason 
 against their sovereign is a much less grievous crime ; it 
 
XII.] OLAF THE SAINT. 241 
 
 is more in my power to spare those who have dealt ill with 
 me, than those whom God hated." The same hard meas- 
 ure which he meted to others he applied to his own actions ; 
 witness that curiously characteristic scene, when, sitting in 
 his high seat, at table, lost in thought, he begins uncon- 
 sciously to cut splinters from a piece of fir-wood which he 
 held in his hand. The table servant seeing what the 
 King was about, says to him (mark the respectful peri- 
 phrasis !), " // is Monday^ Sire, to-morrow.^' The King 
 looks at him, and it came into his mind what he was doing 
 on a Sunday. He sweeps up the shavings he had made, 
 set fire to them, and lets them burn on his naked hand ; 
 " showing thereby that he would hold fast by God's law, 
 and not trespass without punishment." 
 
 But whatever human weakness may have mingled with 
 the pure ore of this noble character, whatever barbarities 
 may have stained his career, they are forgotten in the 
 pathetic close of his martial story. 
 
 His subjects — alienated by the sternness with which he 
 administers his own severely religious laws, or corrupted by 
 the bribes of Canute, King of Denmark and England — are 
 fallen from their allegiance. The brave, single-hearted 
 monarch is marching against the rebellious Bonders, at the 
 head of a handful of foreign troops, and such as remained 
 faithful among his own people. On the eve of that last 
 battle, on which he stakes throne and life, he intrusts a large 
 sum of money to a Bonder, to be laid out " on churches, 
 priests, and almsmen, as gifts for the souls of such as may 
 fall in battle against himself,'^ — strong in the conviction of 
 the righteousness of his cause, and the assured salvation 
 of such as upheld it. 
 
 He makes a glorious end. Forsaken by many whom 
 he had loved and served, yet forgiving and excusing them ; 
 rejecting the aid of all who denied that holy Faith which 
 had become the absorbing interest of his life, — but sur 
 
 16 
 
242 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XII. 
 
 rounded by a faithful few, who share his fate ; " in the lost 
 battle, borne down by the flying" — he falls, transpierced by 
 many wounds, and the last words on his fervent lips are 
 prayer to God.-^ 
 
 Surely there was a gallant saint and soldier. Yet he 
 was not the only one who bore himself nobly on that day. 
 Here is another episode of that same fatal fight. 
 
 A certain Thormod is one of the Scalds (or Poets) in 
 King Olaf's army. The night before the battle he sings a 
 spirited song at the King's request, who gives him a gold 
 ring from his finger in token of his approval. Thormod 
 thanks him for the gift, and says, " It is my prayer, Sire, 
 that we shall never part, either in life or death." When 
 the King receives his death-wound Thormod is near him, — 
 but, wounded himself, and so weak and weary that in a 
 desperate onslaught by the King's men, — nicknamed 
 " Dags stor7n^^' — he only stood by his comrade in the ranks^ 
 although he could do nothing. 
 
 The noise of the battle has ceased ; the King is lying 
 dead where he fell. The very man who had dealt him his 
 death- wound has laid the body straight out on the ground, 
 and spread a cloak over it. " And when he wiped the 
 blood from the face it was very beautiful, and there was red 
 in the cheeks, as if he only slept." 
 
 Thormod, who had received a second wound as he 
 stood in the ranks — (an arrow in hi-s side, which he breaks 
 off at the shaft), — wanders away towards a large barn, 
 where other wounded men have taken refuge. Entering 
 with his drawn sword in his hand, he meets one of the 
 Bonders coming out, who says, " It is very bad there, with 
 howling and screaming ; and a great shame it is, that brisk 
 young fellows cannot bear their wounds. The King's men 
 
 1 The exact date of the battle of Sticklestad is known : an eclipse 
 of the sun occurred while it was going on. 
 
XII.J THORMOD THE SCALD. 243 
 
 may have done bravely to-day, but truly they bear their 
 wounds ill." 
 
 Thormod asks what his name is, and if he was in the 
 battle, Kimbe was his name, and he had been " with the 
 Bonders, which was the best side." "And hast thoubeen 
 in the battle too ? " asks he of Thormod. 
 
 Thormod replies, •" I was with them that had the best." 
 
 '' Art thou wounded ? " says Knnbe. 
 
 " Not much to signify," says Thormod. 
 
 Kimbe sees the gold ring, and says, " Thou art a 
 King's man : give me thy gold ring, and I will hide thee." 
 
 Thormod replies, " Take the ring if thou canst get it ; 
 I have lost that which is more worth.'''' 
 
 Kimbe stretches out his hand to seize the ring ; but 
 Thormod, swinging his sword, cuts off his hand ; and ii is 
 related^ that Kimbe behaved no better under his wound 
 than those he had just been blaming." 
 
 Thormod then enters the house where the wounded are 
 lying, and seats himself in silence by the door. 
 
 As the people go in and out, one of them casts a look at 
 Thormod, and says, " Why art thou so dead pale ? Art 
 thou wounded ? " He answers carelessly, with a half-jest- 
 ing rhyme, then rises and stands awhile by the fire. A 
 woman, who is attending on those who are hurt, bids him 
 "go out, and bring in firewood from the door." He returns 
 with the wood, and the girl then looking him in the face, 
 says, "Dreadfully pale is this man ;" and asks to see his 
 wounds. She examines his wound in his side, and feels 
 that the iron of the arrow is still there ; she then takes a 
 pair of tongs and tries to pull it out, " but it sat too fast, 
 and as the wound was swelled, little of it stood out to lay 
 hold of." Thormod bids her " cut deep enough to reach 
 the iron, and then to give him the tongs, and let him pull." 
 She did as he bade. He takes the ring from his hand, and 
 gives it to the girl, saying, " It is a good man's gift ! King 
 
244 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XII. 
 
 Olaf gave it to me this morning." Then Thormod took 
 the tongs and pulled the iron out. The arrow-head was 
 barbed, and on it there hung some morsels of flesh. When 
 he saw that he said, " The King has fed us well I I am fat, 
 even at the heart-roots ! '' And so saying, he leant back, 
 and died.^ 
 
 Stout, faithful heart ! if they gave you no place in your 
 master's stately tomb, there is room for you by his side in 
 heaven ! 
 
 I have at last received — I need not say how joyfully — 
 two letters from you ; one addressed to Hammerfest. I 
 had begun to think that some Norwegian warlock had be- 
 witched the post-bags, in the approved old ballad fashion, 
 to prevent their rendering up my dues ; for when the 
 packet of letters addressed to the ''''Foam " was brought on 
 board, immediately after our arrival, I alone got nothing. 
 From Sigurdr and the Doctor to the cabin-boy, every face 
 was beaming over " news from home ! " while I was left to 
 walk the deck, with my hands in my pockets, pretending 
 not to care. But the spell is broken now, and I retract my 
 evil thoughts of the warlock and you. 
 
 Yesterday we made an excursion as far as Lade', saw a 
 waterfall, which is one of the lions of this neighborhood 
 (but a very mitigated lion, which " roars you as soft as any 
 sucking dove "), and returned in the evening to attend a 
 ball given to celebrate the visit of the Crown Prince. 
 
 At Lade, I confess I could think of nothing but " the 
 great Jarl" Hacon, the counsellor, and maker of kings, 
 king himself in all but the name, for he ruled over the 
 western sea-board of Norway, while Olaf Tryggvesson was 
 yet a wanderer and exile. He is certainly one of the most 
 picturesque figures of these Norwegian dramas ; what with 
 
 1 When a man was wounded in the abdomen, it was the habit of the 
 Norse leeches to give him an onion to eat ; by this means they learnt 
 whether the weapon had perforated the viscera. 
 
XII.]" THE SWINE-STYLE. 245 
 
 his rude wit, his personal bravery, and that hereditary- 
 beauty of his race for which he was conspicuous above the 
 rest. His very errors, great as they were, have a dash and 
 prestige about them, which in that rude time must have 
 dazzled men's eyes, and especially women's as his story 
 proves. It was his sudden passion for the beautiful Gudrun 
 Lyrgia (the " Sun of Lunde," as she was called), which pre- 
 cipitated the avenging fate which years of heart-burnings 
 and discontent among his subjects had been preparing. 
 Gudrun's husband incites the Bonders to throw off the yoke 
 of the licentious despot, — Olaf Tryggvesson is proclaimed 
 king, — and the "great Jarl of Lade" is now a fugitive in 
 the land he so lately ruled, accompanied by a single thrall, 
 named Karker. 
 
 In this extremity, Jarl Hacon applies for aid to Thora 
 of Rimmol, a lady whom he had once dearly loved : she is 
 faithful in adversity to the friend of happier days, and con- 
 ceals the Jarl and his companion in a hole dug for this pur- 
 pose, in the swine-stye, and covered over with wood and 
 litter ; as the only spot likely to elude the hot search of his 
 enemies. Olaf and the Bonders seek for him in Thora's 
 house, but in vain ; and finally, Olaf, standing on the very 
 stone against which the swine-stye is built, promises wealth 
 and honors to him who shall bring him the Jarl of Lade's 
 head. The scene which follows is related by the Icelandic 
 historian with Dante's tragic power. 
 
 There was a little daylight in their hiding-place, and the 
 Jarl and Karker both hear the words of Olaf. 
 
 "Why art thou so pale?" says the Jarl, "and now 
 again as black as earth .? Thou dost not mean to betray 
 me ? " 
 
 " By no means," said Karker. 
 
 " We were born on the same night," said the Jarl, " and 
 the time will not be long between our deaths." 
 
 When night came, the Jarl kept himself awake ; but 
 
246 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [XII. 
 
 Karker slept ; — a troubled sleep. The Jarl awoke him, 
 and asked of what he was dreaming. He answered, " I 
 was at Lade, and Olaf was laying a gold ring about my 
 neck." 
 
 The Jarl said, '' It will be a red ring about thy neck, if 
 he catches thee : from me thou shalt enjoy all that is good, 
 — therefore, betray me not ! " 
 
 Then they both kept themselves awake ; " the one, as it 
 were, watching upon the other.'' But towards day, the Jarl 
 dropped asleep, and in his unquiet slumber he drew his 
 heels under him, and raised his neck as if going to rise, 
 "and shrieked fearfully." On this, Karker, "dreadfully 
 alarmed," drew a knife from his belt, stuck it into the Jarl's 
 throat, and cut off his head. Late in the day he came to 
 Lade, brought the Jarl's head to Olaf, and told his story. 
 
 It is a comfort to know that " the red ring'' was laid 
 round the traitor's neck : Olaf caused him to be beheaded. 
 
 What a picture that is, in the swine-stye, those two hag- 
 gard faces, travel-stained and worn with want of rest, 
 watching each other with hot, sleepless eyes through the 
 half darkness, and how true to nature is the nightmare of 
 the miserable Jarl ! 
 
 It was on my return from Lade, that I found your let- 
 ters ; and that I might enjoy them without interruption, I 
 carried them off to the churchyard — (such a beautiful 
 place !) — to read in peace and quiet. The churchyard was 
 not " populous with young men, striving to be alone," as 
 Tom Hood describes it to have been in a certain senti- 
 mental parish ; so I enjoyed the seclusion I anticipated. 
 
 I was much struck by the loving care and ornament be- 
 stowed on the graves ; some were literally loaded with 
 flowers, and even those which bore the date of a long past 
 sorrow had each its own blooming crown, or fresh nosegay. 
 These good Throndhjemers must have much of what the 
 French call la religion des souvenirs^ a religion in which we 
 
XII.] HARALD HARDRADA. 247 
 
 English (as a nation) are singularly deficient. I suppose 
 no people in Europe are so little addicted to the keeping 
 of sentimental anniversaries as we are ; I make an excep- 
 tion with regard to our living friends' birthdays, which we 
 are ever tenderly ready to cultivate, when called on ; turtle, 
 venison, and champagne, being pleasant investments for 
 the affections. But time and business do not admit of a 
 faithful adherence to more sombre reminiscences ; a busy 
 gentleman " on 'Change " cannot conveniently shut himself 
 up, on his " lost Araminta's natal-day," nor will a railroad 
 committee allow of his running down by the 10.25 a. m., 
 to shed a tear over that neat tablet in the new Willow-cum- 
 Hatband Cemetery. He is necessarily content to regret 
 his Araminta in the gross, and to omit the petty details of 
 a too pedantic sorrow. 
 
 The fact is, we are an eminently practical people, and 
 are easily taught to accept "the irrevocable," if not without 
 regret, at least with a philosophy which repudiates all su- 
 perfluous methods of showing it. Decent is the usual and 
 appropriate term applied to our churchyard solemnities, 
 and we are not only " content to dwell in decencies for 
 ever," but to die, and be buried in them. 
 
 The cathedral loses a little of its poetical physiognomy 
 on a near approach. Modern restoration has done some- 
 thing to spoil the outside, and modern refinement a good 
 deal to degrade the interior with pews and partitions ; but 
 it is a very fine building, and worthy of its metropolitan 
 dignity. I am told that the very church built by Magnus 
 the Good — son of Saint Olave — over his father's remains, 
 and finished by his uncle Harald Hardrada, is, or rather 
 was, included in the walls of the cathedral ; and though 
 successive catastrophes by fire have perhaps left but little 
 of the original building standing, I like to think that some 
 of these huge stones were lifted to their place under the 
 eyes of Harald the Stern. It was on the eve of his last 
 
248 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XII. 
 
 fatal expedition against our own Harold of England that 
 the shrine of St. Olave was opened by the King, who, hav- 
 ing clipped the hair and nails of the dead saint (most prob- 
 ably as relics, efficacious for the protection of himself and 
 followers), then- locked the shrine, and threw the keys into 
 the Nid. Its secrets from that day were respected until 
 the profane hands of Lutheran Danes carried it bodily 
 away, with all the gold and silver chalices, and jewelled 
 pyxes, which, by kingly gifts and piratical offerings, had 
 accumulated for centuries in its treasury. 
 
 He must have been a fine, resolute fellow, that Harald 
 the Stern, although, in spite of much church-building and 
 a certain amount of Pagan-persecuting, his character did 
 not in any way emulate that of his saintly brother. The 
 early part of his history reads like a fairy tale, and is a fa- 
 vorite subject for Scald songs ; more especially his romantic 
 adventures in the East, — 
 
 " Well worthy of the golden prime 
 Of good Haroun Alraschid ; " 
 
 where Saracens flee like chaff upon the wind before him, 
 and impregnable Sicilian castles fall into his power by im- 
 possible feats of arms, or incredible stratagems. A Greek 
 empress, '' the mature Zoe," as Gibbon calls her, falls in 
 love with him, and her husband, Constantine Monomachus, 
 puts him in prison ; but Saint Olaf still protects his inaii- 
 vais siijet of a brother, and inspires " a lady of distinction" 
 with the successful idea of helping Elarald out of his inac- 
 cessible tower by the prosaic expedient of a ladder of ropes. 
 A boom, however, across the harbor's mouth still prevents 
 the escape of his vessel. The Sea-king is not to be so 
 easily baffled. Moving all his ballast, arms, and men into 
 the afterpart of the ship, until her stem slants up out of 
 the sea, he rows straight at the iron chain. The ship leaps 
 almost half-way over. The weight being then immediately 
 
XII.J THE BATTLE OF STANFORD BRIDGE. 249 
 
 transferred to the fore-part, the ship slips down into the 
 water on the other side ; having topped the fence Uke an 
 Irish hunter. A second galley breaks her back in the at- 
 tempt. After some questionable acts of vengeance on the 
 Greek court, Harald and his bold Vaeringers go fighting 
 and plundering their way through the Bosphorus and Black 
 Sea back to Novogorod, where the first part of the romance 
 terminates, as it should, by his marriage with the object of 
 his secret attachment, Elisof, the daughter of the Russian 
 king. 
 
 Hardrada's story darkens towards the end, as most of 
 the tales of that stirring time are apt to do. His death on 
 English ground is so striking, that you must have patience 
 with one other short Saga : it will give you the battle of 
 Stanford Bridge from the Norse point of view. 
 
 The expedition against Harold of England commences 
 ill ; dreams and omens affright the fleet ; one man dreams 
 he sees a raven sitting on the stern of each vessel j another 
 sees the fair English coast ; 
 
 " But glancing shields 
 Hide the green fields ; " 
 
 and other fearful phenomena mar the beautiful vision. 
 Harald himself dreams that he is back again at Nidaros, 
 and that his brother Olaf meets him with a prophecy of 
 ruin and death. The bold Norsemen are not to be daunt- 
 ed by these auguries, and their first successes on the Eng- 
 lish coast seem to justify their persistence. But on a cer- 
 tain beautiful Monday in September (a. d. 1066, according 
 to the Saxon Chronicle), part of his army being encamped 
 at Stanford Bridge, " Hardrada, having taken breakfast^ or- 
 dered the trumpets to sound for going on shore ; " but he 
 left half his force behind, to guard the ships : and his men, 
 anticipating no resistance from the castle, which had already 
 surrendered, " went on shore (the weather being hot), with 
 
250 LE TIERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES [XII. 
 
 only their helmets, shields, and spears, and girt with swords ; 
 some had bows and arrows, — and all were very merry." 
 On nearing the castle, they see " a cloud of dust as from 
 horses' feet, and under it shining shields and bright armor." 
 English Harold's army is before them. Hardrada sends 
 back to his ship for succor, and sets up his banner, "Land 
 Ravager," undismayed by the inequality of his force, and 
 their comparatively unarmed condition. The men on each 
 side are drawn up in battle array, and the two kings in 
 presence ; each gazes eagerly to discover his noble foe 
 among the multitude. Harald Hardrada's black horse 
 stumbles and falls ; " the King got up in haste, and said, 
 ' A fall is lucky for a traveller.' " 
 
 The English King said to the Northmen who were with 
 him, " Do you know the stout man who fell from his horse, 
 with the blue kirtle, and beautiful helmet ? " 
 
 " That is the Norwegian King," said they. 
 
 English Harold replied, " A great man, and of stately 
 appearance is he ; but I think his luck has left him." 
 
 And now twenty gallant English knights ride out of 
 their ranks to parley with the Northmen. One advances 
 beyond the rest and asks if Earl Toste, the brother of Eng- 
 lish Harold (who has banded with his enemy against him), 
 is with the army. 
 
 The Earl himself proudly answers, " It is not to be 
 denied that you will find him here." 
 
 The Saxon says, " Thy brother, Harold, sends his salu- 
 tation, and offers thee the third part of his kingdom, if 
 thou wilt be reconciled and submit to him." 
 
 The Earl replies, at the suggestion of the Norse King, 
 " What will my brother the King give to Harald Hardrada 
 for his trouble ? " 
 
 " He will give him," says the Knight, " seven feet of 
 English ground^ or as much more as he may be taller than 
 other men.'''' 
 
XII.] A BALL AT THRONDHJEM. 251 
 
 "Then," sa3-s the Earl, "let the English King, my 
 brother, make ready for battle, for it never shall be said 
 that Earl Toste broke faith with his friends when they came 
 with him to fight west here in England." 
 
 When the knights rode off. King Harald Hardrada 
 asked the Earl, " Who was the man who spoke so well .'' " 
 
 The Earl replied, " That knight was Harold of Eng- 
 land." 
 
 The stern Norwegian King regrets that his enemy had 
 escaped from his hands, owing to his ignorance of this 
 fact j but even in his first burst of disappointment, the 
 noble Norse nature speaks in .generous admiration of his 
 foe, saying to the people about him, " That was but a little 
 man, yet he sat firmly in his stirrups." 
 
 The fierce but unequal combat is soon at an end ; and 
 when tardy succor arrives from the ships, Harald Har- 
 drada is lying on his face, with the deadly arrow in his 
 throat, never to see Nidaros again. Seven feet of English 
 earth, and no more, has the strong arm and fiery spirit 
 conquered. 
 
 But enough of these gallant fellows ; I must carry you 
 off to a much pleasanter scene of action. After a very 
 
 agreeable dinner with Mr. K , who has been most kind 
 
 to us, we adjourned to the ball. The room was large and 
 well lighted — plenty of pretty faces adored it ; — the floor 
 was smooth, and the scrape of the fiddles had a festive 
 
 accent so extremely inspiriting, that I besought Mr. K 
 
 to present me to one of the fair personages whose tiny feet 
 were already tapping the floor with impatience at their own 
 inactivity. 
 
 I was led up in due form to a very pretty lady, and 
 heard my own name, followed by a singular sound purport- 
 ing to be that of my charming partner, Madame Hghelgh- 
 ghagUaghem. For the pronunciation of this polysyllabic 
 cognomen, I can only give you a few plain instructions ; 
 
252 LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XI I. 
 
 commence it with a slight cough, continue with a gurgling 
 in the throat, and finish with the first convulsive movement 
 of a sneeze, imparting to the whole operation a delicate 
 nasal twang. If the result is not something approaching 
 to the sound required, you must relinquish all hope of 
 achieving it, as I did. Luckily, my business was to dance, 
 and not to apostrophize the lady ; and accordingly, when 
 the waltz struck up, I hastened to claim, in the dumbest 
 show, the honor of her hand. Although my dancing qual- 
 ifications have rather rusted during the last two or three 
 years, I remembered that the time was not so very far distant 
 
 when even the fair Mad''^^'^- E had graciously pronounced 
 
 me to be a very tolerable waltzer, "for an Englishman," 
 and I led my partner to the circle already formed with the 
 " air capable''' which the object of such praise is entitled to 
 assume. There was a certain languid rhythm in the air 
 they were playing which rather offended my ears, but I 
 suspected nothing until^ observing the few couples who had 
 already descended into the arena, I became aware that 
 they were twirling about with all the antiquated grace of 
 *V<:z valse a trois temps.''' Of course my partner would be no 
 exception to the general rule ! nobody had ever danced 
 anything else at Throndhjem from the days of Odin down- 
 wards ; and I had never so much as attempted it. What 
 was to be done .? I could not explam the state of the case 
 to Madame Hghelghghagllaghem : she could not understand 
 English, nor I speak Norse. My brain reeled with anxiety 
 to find some solution of the difficulty, or some excuse for 
 rushing from her presence. What if I were taken with a 
 sudden bleeding at the nose, or had an apopletic fit on the 
 spot ? Either case would necessitate my being carried 
 decently out, and consigned to oblivion, which would have 
 been a comfort, under the circumstances. There was noth- 
 ing for It but the courage of despair ; so, casting reflection 
 to the winds, .and my arm round her waist, I suddenly 
 
XII.] ODIN AND HIS PALADINS. 253 
 
 whisked her off her legs, and dnshed madly down the room. 
 " a deux tevips^ At the first perception that something 
 unusual was going on, she gave such an eldritch scream, 
 that the whole society suddenly came to a standstill. I 
 thought it best to assume an aspect of innocent composure 
 and conscious rectitude ; which had its effect, for though 
 the lady began with a certain degree of hysterical anima- 
 tion to describe her wrongs, she finished with a hearty 
 laugh, in which the company cordially joined, and I deli- 
 cately chimed in. For the rest of the dance she seemed 
 to resign herself to her fate, and floated through space, 
 under my guidance, with all the abandon of Francesca di 
 Rimini, in Scheffer's famous picture. 
 
 The Crown Prince is a tall, fine-looking person : he was 
 very gracious, and asked many questions about my voyage. 
 
 At night there was a general illumination, to which the 
 " Foam " contributed some blue lights. 
 
 We got under way early this morning, and without a 
 pilot — as we had entered — made our way out to sea again. 
 I left Throndhjem with regret, not for its own sake, for in 
 spite of balls and illuminations I should think the pleasures 
 of a stay there would not be deliriously exciting ; but this 
 whole district is so intimately associated in my mind with 
 all the brilliant episodes of ancient Norwegian History, 
 that I feel as if I were taking leave of all those noble 
 Haralds, and Olafs, and Hacons, among whom I have 
 been living in such pleasant intimacy for some time past. 
 
 While we are dropping down the coast, I may as well 
 employ the time in giving you a rapid sketch of the com- 
 mencement of this fine Norse people, though the story 
 '^remontejusgu'a la niiit des temps'' and has something of 
 the vague magnificence of your own M'Donnell genealogy, 
 ending a long list of great potentates, with " somebody, 
 who was the son of somebody else, who was the son of 
 Scotha, who was the daughter of Pharaoh ! " 
 
254 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES, [XII, 
 
 In by-gone ages, be3^oncl the Scythian plains and the 
 fens of the Tanais, in that land of the morning, to which 
 neither Grecian letters nor Roman arms had ever pene- 
 trated, there was a great city called Asgaard. Of its founder, 
 of its history, we know notiiing ; but, looming through the 
 mists of antiquity, we can discern an heroic figure, whose 
 superior attainments won for him the lordship of his own 
 generation, and divine honors from those that succeeded. 
 Whether moved by an irresistible impulse, or impelled by 
 more poweiful neighbors, it is impossible to say ; but 
 certain it is that at some period, not perhaps very long 
 before the Christian era, under the guidance of this per- 
 sonage, a sun-nurtured people moved across the face of 
 Europe, in a north-westerly direction, and after leaving 
 settlements along the southern shores of the Baltic, finally 
 established themselves in the forests and valleys of what 
 has come to be called the Scandinavian Peninsula. That 
 children of the South should have sought out so inclement 
 a habitation may excite surprise ; but it must always be 
 remembered that they were, probably, a comparatively scanty 
 congregation, and that the unoccupied valleys of Norway 
 and Sweden, teeming with fish and game, and rich in iron, 
 were a preferable region to lands only to be colonised 
 after they had been conquered. 
 
 Thus, under the leadership of Odin and his twelve Pala- 
 dins, — to whoin a grateful posterity afterwards conceded 
 thrones in the halls of their chief's Valhalla, — the nev/ 
 emigrants spread themselves along the margin of the out- 
 ocean, and round about the gloomy fiords, and up and 
 down the deep valleys that fall away at right angles from 
 the backbone, or keel^ as the seafaring population soon 
 learnt to call the flat, snow-capped ridge that runs down 
 the centre of Norway. 
 
 Amid the rude but not ungenial influences of its bracing 
 climate, was gradually fostered that gallant race which was 
 
XII.] THE BONDERS. 255 
 
 destined to give an imperial dynasty to Russia, a nobility 
 to England, the conquerors to every sea-board in Europe. 
 
 Upon the occupation of their new home, the ascendency 
 ofthat mysterious hero, under whose auspices the settlement 
 was conducted, appears to have remained more firmly estab- 
 lished than ever, not only over the mass of the people, but 
 also over the twelve surbordinate chiefs who accompanied 
 him; there never seems to have been the slightest attempt 
 to question his authority, and, though afterwards themselves 
 elevated into an order of celestial beings, every tradition 
 which has descended is careful to maintain his human and 
 divine supremacy. Through the obscurity, the exaggera- 
 tion, and the ridiculous fables, with which his real existence 
 has been overloaded, we can still see that this man evidently 
 possessed a genius as superior to his contemporaries, as 
 has ever given to any child of man the ascendency over his 
 generation. In the simple language of the old chronicler, 
 we are told, " that his countenance was so beautiful that 
 when sitting among his friends, the spirits of all were ex- 
 hilarated by it ; that when he spoke, all were persuaded ; 
 that when he went forth to meet his enemies, none could 
 withstand him," Though subsequently made a god by the 
 superstitious people he had benefitted, his death seems to 
 have been noble and religious. He summoned his friends 
 around his pillow, intimated a belief in the immortality of his 
 soul, and his hope that hereafter they should meet again 
 in Paradise. " Then," we are told, " began the belief in 
 Odin, and their calling upon him." 
 
 On the settlement of the country, the land was divided 
 and subdivided into lots — some as small as fifty acres — and 
 each proprietor held his share — as their descendants do to 
 this day — by udal right ; that is, not as a fief of the Crown, 
 or of any superior lord, but in absolute, inalienable posses- 
 sion, by the same udal right as the kings wore their crowns, 
 to be transmitted, under the same title, to their descendants 
 unto all generations. 
 
256 LEI TERS FROM HIGH LA TI TUBES. [XII. 
 
 These landed proprietors were called the Bonders, and 
 formed the chief strength of the realm. It was they, their 
 friends and servants, or thralls, who constituted the army. 
 Without their consent the king could do nothing. On 
 stated occasions they met together, in solemn assembly, or 
 Thing, {i.e. Parliament,) as it was called, for the transaction 
 of public business, the administration of justice, the allot- 
 ment of the scatt, or taxes. 
 
 Without a solemn induction at the Ore or Great Thinof, 
 even the most legitimately-descended sovereign could not 
 mount the throne, and to that august assembly an appeal 
 might ever lie against his authority. 
 
 To these Things, and to the Norse invasion that im- 
 planted them, and not to the Wittenagemotts of the Latin- 
 ized Saxons, must be referred the existence of those Parlia- 
 ments which are the boast of Englishmen. 
 
 Noiselessly and gradually did a belief in liberty, and an 
 unconquerable love of independence, grow up among that 
 simple people. No feudal despots oppressed the unpro- 
 tected, for all were noble and udal born ; no standing armies 
 enabled the Crown to set popular opinion at defiance, for 
 the swords of the Bonders sufficed to guard the realm \ no 
 military barons usurped an illegitimate authority, for the 
 nature of the soil forbade the erection of feudal fortresses. 
 Over the rest of Europe despotism rose up rank under the 
 tutelage of a corrupt religion ; while, year after year, amid 
 the savage scenery of its Scandinavian nursery, that great 
 race was maturing whose genial heartiness was destined to 
 invigorate the sickly civilization of the Saxon with inex- 
 haustible energy, and preserve to the world, even in the 
 nineteenth century, one glorious example of a free European 
 people. 
 
LETTER XIII. 
 
 COPENHAGEN BERGEN THE BLACK DEATH SIGURDR 
 
 HOMEWARDS. 
 
 Copenhagen, Sept. 12th, 1856. 
 
 Our adventures since the date of my last letter have not 
 been of an exciting character. We had fine weather and 
 prosperous winds down the coast, and stayed a day at 
 Christiansund, and another at Bergen. But though the 
 novelty of the cruise had ceased since our arrival in lower 
 latitudes, there was always a certain raciness and oddity in 
 the incidents of our coasting voyage ; such as — waking in 
 the morning, and finding the schooner brought up under 
 the lee of a wooden house, or — riding out a foul wind with 
 your hawser rove through an iron ring in the sheer side of 
 a mountain, — which took from the comparative flatness of 
 daily life on board. 
 
 Perhaps the queerest incident was a visit paid us at 
 Christiansund. As I was walking the deck 1 saw a boat 
 coming off, with a gentleman on board ; she was soon 
 along-side the schooner, and as I was gazing down on this 
 individual, and wondering what he wanted, I saw him sud- 
 denly lift his feet lightly over the gunwale and plunge them 
 into the water, boots and all. After cooling his heels in 
 this way for a minute or so, he laid hold of the side ropes 
 and gracefully swung himself on deck. Upon this, Sigurdr, 
 who always acted interpreter on such occasions, advanced 
 towards him, and a colloquy followed, which terminated 
 rather abruptly in Sigurdr walking aft, and the web-footed 
 
 17 257 
 
258 LETTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XIII. 
 
 Stranger clucking clown into his boat again. It was not till 
 some hours later that the indignant Sigurdr explained the 
 meaning of the visit. Although not a naval character, this 
 gentleman certainly came into the category of men " who 
 do business in great waters," his hiismess being to negotiate 
 a loan; in short, to ask me tO- lend him ;^ioo. There 
 must have been something very innocent and confiding in 
 "the cut of our jib " to encourage his boarding us on such 
 an errand ; or perhaps it was the old marauding, toll-taking 
 sjDirit coming out strong in him : the politer influences of 
 the nineteenth century toning down the ancient Viking into 
 a sort of a cross between Paul Jones and Jeremy Diddler. 
 The seas which his ancestors once swept with their galleys, 
 he now sweeps with his telescope, and with as keen an eye 
 to \h^ main chance as any of his predecessors displayed. 
 The feet-washing ceremony was evidently a propitiatory 
 homage to the purity of my quarter-deck. 
 
 Bergen, with its pale-faced houses grouped on the brink 
 of the fiord, like invalids at a German Spa, though pic- 
 turesque in its way, with a cathedral of its own, and plenty 
 of churches, looked rather tame and spiritless after the 
 warmer coloring of Throndhjem ; moreover it wanted nov- 
 elty to me, as I called in there two years ago on my return 
 from the Baltic. It was on that occasion that I became 
 possessed of my ever-to-be-lamented infant walrus. 
 
 No one, personally unacquainted with that "most deli- 
 cate monster," can have any idea of his attaching qualities. 
 I own that his figure was not strictly symmetrical j that he 
 had a roll in his gait, suggestive of heavy seas ; that he 
 would not have looked well in your boudoir : but he never 
 seemed out of place on my quarter-deck, and every man on 
 board loved him as a brother. With what a languid grace 
 he would wallow and roll in the water, when we chucked 
 him overboard ; and paddle and splash, and make himself 
 thoroughly cool and comfortable, and then come and "beg 
 
XI 1 1.] THE WALRUS. 259 
 
 to be taken up," like a fat baby, and allow the rope to be 
 slipped round his extensive waist, and come up — sleek and 
 dripping — among us again with a contented grunt, as much 
 as to say, "Well, after all, there's no place like home f'' 
 How he would compose himself to placid slumber in every 
 possible inconvenient place, with his head on the binnacle 
 (especially when careful steering was a matter of moment), 
 or across the companion entrance, or the cabin skylight, or 
 on the shaggy back of " Sailor," the Newfoundland, who 
 positively abhorred him. But how touching it was to see 
 him waddle up and down the deck after Mr. Wyse, whom 
 he evidently regarded in a maternal point of view — begging 
 for milk with the most expressive snorts and grunts, and 
 embarrassing my good-natured master by demonstrative 
 appeals to his fostering offices ! 
 
 I shall never forget Mr. Wyse's countenance that day 
 in Ullapool Bay, when he tried to command his feelings 
 sufficiently to acquaint me • with the creature's death, which 
 he announced in this graphic sentence, " Ah, my Lord ! — 
 the poor thing ! — toes up at last I " 
 
 Bergen is not as neat and orderly in its architectural 
 arrangements as Drontheim ; a great part of the city is a 
 confused network of narrow streets and alleys, much resem- 
 bling, I should think, its early inconveniences, in the days 
 of Olaf Kyrre. This close and stifling system of street 
 building must have ensured fatal odds against the chances 
 of life in some of those world-devastating plagues- that 
 characterize past ages. Bergen was, in fact, nearly depopu- 
 lated by that terrible pestilence which, in 1349, ravaged the 
 North of Europe, and whose memory is still preserved un- 
 der the name of " The Black Death." 
 
 I have been tempted to enclose you a sort of ballad, 
 which was composed while looking on the very scene of 
 this disastrous event ; its only merit consists in its local in- 
 spiration, and in its conveying a true relation of the man- 
 ner in which the plague entered the doomed city. 
 
2 6o LE TTERS FROM HIGH LA TITUDES. [XIII. 
 
 THE BLACK DEATH OF BERGEN. 
 
 What can ail the Bergen Burghers 
 
 That they leave their stoups of wine ? 
 Flinging up the hill like jagers, 
 
 At the hour they're wont to dine ! 
 See, the shifting groups are fringing 
 
 Rock and ridge with gay attire, 
 Bright as Northern streamers tinging 
 
 Peak and crag with fitful fire ! 
 
 Towards the cliff their steps are bending, 
 
 Westward turns their eager gaze, 
 Whence a stately ship ascending. 
 
 Slowly cleaves the golden haze. 
 Landward floats the apparition — 
 
 " Is it, call it be the same .'' " 
 Frantic cries of recognition 
 
 Shout a long-lost vessel's name ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Years ago had she departed — 
 
 Castled poojD and gilded stern ; 
 Weeping women, broken-hearted, 
 
 Long had waited her return. 
 When the midnight sun wheeled downwards. 
 
 But to kiss the ocean's verge — 
 When the noonday sun, a moment 
 
 Peeped above the Wintry surge, 
 
 Childless mothers, orphaned daughters, 
 
 From the seaward-facing crag, 
 Vainly searched the vacant waters 
 
 For that unreturning flag ! 
 But, suspense and tears are ended, 
 
 Lo ! it floats upon the breeze ! 
 Ne'er from eager hearts ascended 
 
 Thankful prayers as warm as these 
 
XIII.] THE BLACK DEATH, 261 
 
 See the good ship proudly rounding 
 
 That last point that blocks the view ; 
 " Strange ! no answering cheer resounding 
 
 From the long home-parted crew ! " 
 Past the harbor's stony gateway, 
 
 Onwards borne by sucking tides, 
 Tho' the light wind faileth — straightway 
 
 Into port she safely glides. 
 
 Swift, as by good angels carried, 
 Right and left the news has spread, 
 
 Wives long widowed — yet scarce married- 
 Brides that never hoped to wed. 
 
 From a hundred pathways meeting 
 Crowd along the narrow quay. 
 
 Maddened by the hope of meeting 
 Those long counted cast away. 
 
 Soon a crowd of small boats flutter 
 
 O'er the intervening space, 
 Bearing hearts too full to utter 
 
 Thoughts that flush the eager face ! 
 See young Eric foremost gaining — 
 
 (For a father's love athirst !) 
 Every nerve and muscle straining, 
 
 But to touch the dear \v3sA first. 
 
 In the ship's green shadow rocking 
 
 Lies his little boat at last : 
 "Wherefore is the warm heart knocking 
 
 At his side, so loud and fast ? 
 " What strange aspect is she wearing, 
 
 Vessel once so taut and trim ? 
 Shout ! — my heart has lost its daring ; 
 
 Comrades, search ! — my eyes are dim. 
 
262 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XIII. 
 
 Sad the search, and fearful finding ! 
 
 On the deck lay parched and dry- 
 Men — who in some burning, blinding 
 
 Clime — had laid them down to die ! 
 Hands — prayer-clenched — that would not sever, 
 
 Eyes that stared against the sun, 
 Sighs that haunt the soul for ever, 
 
 Poisoning life — till life is done ! 
 
 Strength from fear doth Eric gather, 
 
 Wide the cabin door he threw — 
 Lo ! the face of his dead father, 
 
 Stern and still, confronts his view ! 
 Stately as in life he bore him, 
 
 Seated — motionless and grand ; 
 On the blotted page before him 
 
 Lingers still the livid hand ! 
 
 What sad entry was he making. 
 
 When the death-stroke fell at last ? 
 " Is it then God's will, in taking 
 
 All, that I am left the last ? 
 I have closed the cabin doorway, 
 
 That I may not see them die : — 
 Would our bones might rest in Norway,- 
 
 'Neath our own cool Northern sky ! " 
 
 Then the ghastly log-book told them 
 
 How — in some accursed clime, 
 Where the breathless land-swell rolled them, 
 
 For an endless age of time — 
 Sudden broke the plague among them, 
 
 'Neath that sullen Tropic sun ; 
 As if fiery scorpions stung them — 
 
 Died they raving, one by one ! 
 
XIII.] THE BLA CK DEA TH. 263 
 
 -Told the vain and painful striving, 
 
 By shot-weighted shrouds to hide 
 (Last fond care), from those surviving, 
 
 What good comrade last had died ; 
 Yet the ghastly things kept shovi^ing, 
 
 Waist deep in the unquiet grave — 
 To each other gravely bowing 
 
 On the slow swing of the wave ! 
 
 Eric's boat is near the landing — 
 
 From that dark ship bring they aught ? 
 In the stern sheets one is standing, 
 
 Though their eyes perceive him not ; 
 But a curdling horror creepeth 
 
 Thro' their veins, with icy darts, 
 And each hurried oar-stroke keepeth 
 
 Time with their o'er-laboring hearts ! 
 
 XV. 
 
 Heavy seems their boat returning, 
 
 Weighed with a world of care! 
 Oh, ye blind ones — none discerning 
 
 What the spectral freight ye bear. 
 Glad they hear the sea-beach grating 
 
 Harsh beneath the small boat's stem — 
 Forth they leap, for no man waiting — 
 
 But the Black Death lands with them. 
 
 Viewless — soundless — stalks the spectre 
 
 Thro' the city chill and pale. 
 Which like bride, this morn, had decked her 
 
 For the advent of that sail. 
 Oft by Bergen women, mourning, 
 
 Shall the dismal tale be told, 
 Of that lost ship home returning, 
 
 With " The Black Death " in her hold ! 
 
 I would gladly dwell on the pleasures of my second 
 visit to Christiansund, which has a charm of its own, inde- 
 
264 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XIII. 
 
 pendent of its interest as the spot from whence we really 
 " start for home." But though strange lands, and unknown 
 or indifferent people, are legitimate subjects for travellers' 
 tales, our friends and their pleasant homes are not ; so I 
 shall keep all I have to say of gratitude to our excellent 
 and hospitable Consul, Mr. Morch, and of admiration for 
 his charming v/ife, until I can tell you viva voce how much 
 I wished that you also knew them. 
 
 And now though fairly off from Norway, and on our 
 homeward way, it was a tedious business — what with fogs, 
 calms, and headwinds — working towards Copenhagen. We 
 rounded the Scaw in a thick mist, saw the remains of four 
 ships that had run aground upon it, and were nearly run 
 into ourselves by a clumsy merchantman, whom we had 
 the relief of being able to abuse in our native vernacular, 
 and the most racy sea-slang. 
 
 Those five last days w^ere certainly the only tedious 
 periods of the whole cruise. I suppose there is something 
 magnetic in the soil of one's own country, which may ac- 
 count for that impatient desire to see it again, which al- 
 ways grows, as the distance from it diminishes ; if so, Lon- 
 don clay, — and its superstratum of foul, greasy, gas-dis- 
 colored mud — began about this time to exercise a tender 
 influence upon me, which has been increasing every hour 
 since ; it is just possible that the thoughts of seeing you 
 again may have some share in the matter. 
 
 Somebody (I think Fuller) says somewhere, that " every 
 one with whom you converse, and every place wherein you 
 tarry awhile, giveth somewhat to you, and taketh somewhat 
 away, either for evil or for good ; " a startling considera- 
 tion for circumnavigators, and such like restless spirits j 
 but a comfortable thought, in some respects, for voyagers 
 to Polar regions, as (except seals and bears) few things 
 could suffer evil from us there ; though for our own parts, 
 there were solemn and wholesome influences enough " to 
 
XIII.] SIGURDR. 265 
 
 be taken away" from those icy solitudes, if one were but 
 ready and willing to " stow " them. 
 
 To-morrow I leave Copenhagen, and my good Sigurdr, 
 whose companionship has been a constant source of en- 
 joyment, both to Fitz and myself, during the whole voyage ; 
 I trust that I leave with him a friendly remembrance of 
 our too short connexion, and pleasant thoughts of the 
 strange places and things we have seen together ; as I 
 take away with me a most affectionate memory of his frank 
 and kindly nature, his ready sympathy, and his impertur- 
 bable good humor. From the day on which I shipped 
 him — an entire stranger — until this eve of our separation 
 — as friends, through scenes of occasional discomfort, and 
 circumstances which might sometimes have tried both tem- 
 per and spirits — shut up as we were for four months in the 
 necessarily close communion of life on board a vessel of 
 eighty tons, — there has never been the shadow of a cloud 
 between us; henceforth, the words "an Icelander" can 
 convey no cold or ungenial associations to my ears, and 
 however much my imagination has hitherto delighted in 
 the past history of that singular island, its Present will 
 always claim a deeper and warmer interest from me, for 
 Sigurdr's sake. 
 
 To-morrow Fitz and I start for Hamburg, and very 
 soon after — at least as soon as railroad and steamer can 
 bring me — I look for the joy of seeing your face again. 
 
 By the time this reaches Portsmouth, the " Foam " will 
 have performed a voyage of six thousand miles. 
 
 I have had a most happy time of it, but I fear my amuse- 
 ment will have cost you many a weary hour of anxiety and 
 suspense. 
 
266 
 
 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
 
 [XIII. 
 
 TO THE 
 
 FIGURE-HEAD OF "THE FOAM.' 
 
 Calm sculptured image of as sweet a face 
 As ever lighted up an English home, — 
 
 Whose mute companionship has deigned to grace 
 Our wanderings o'er a thousand leagues of foam,- 
 
 Our progress was your triumph duly hailed 
 By ocean's inmates ; herald dolphins played 
 
 Before our stem, tall ships that sunward sailed 
 With stately curtseys due obeisance paid. 
 
 Fair Fortune's fairer harbinger ! you smoothed 
 Our way before us, through the frantic fling 
 
 Of roystering waves — as once Athene soothed 
 The deeps that raged around the wandering King 
 
Xiri.] FIGURE-HEAD OF " THE FOAM." 267 
 
 IV. 
 
 The scowling temiDcst rose in vain to clutch 
 
 His forked bolts ; you smiled, — they harmless turned 
 
 To sheets of splendor at his palsied touch, 
 And all their anger perished ere it burned. 
 
 Now tinkling waves a peal of welcome rang 
 Against the sheathing of our brazen bows. 
 
 No gladder hymn the rosy Nereids sang, 
 When, clad in sunshine, Aphrodite rose. 
 
 Anon, a mightier passion stirred the deep — 
 
 Presumptuous billows scaled the quivering deck 
 Up to your very lips would dare to leap, 
 And fling their silver arms about your neck ; 
 
 The uncouth winds stole kisses from your cheek, 
 Then, wild with exultation, hurried on, 
 
 And boasting bade their laggard comrades seek 
 The momentary bliss themselves had won. 
 
 Who, following, filled our prosperous sails until 
 We reached eternal winter's drear domain. 
 
 Where suns of June but frozen light distil. 
 And, bafiied, quickly abdicate their reign. 
 
 Yet even here your gracious beauty shed 
 
 Deep calm; old Ocean slumbered 'neath its spell 
 
 And Summer seemed to follow where you led, 
 As loth to bid your kindred smile farewell. 
 
 The ominous shapes of drifting ice, that pack 
 The desolate channels of the polar flood. 
 
 Clustered like wolves around our Northward track, 
 Till swayed by that sweet power to altered mood, 
 
2 68 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [XIII. 
 
 XI. 
 
 They cowered, and ranged themselves on either side, 
 Like vassal ranks who watch some passing Queen 
 
 Through her white columned halls in silence glide, 
 Nor mingling meet till she no more is seen. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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